MEDIA ADVISORY
Media Contact: Javier Saucedo, FAMILIA: Trans Queer Liberation Movement
Decoloresoc@gmail.com, 714-209-3397
Liberation, Not Deportation Rally in Santa Ana Where Trans Detainees Are Held in City Jail Calls for LGBTQ Community to
Challenge Deportations and City to Cut Contract with ICE
WHO: LGBTQ Immigrants and Allies from across the nation.
WHAT: LGBTQ and Immigrant Rights Rally Calling for end to city contract with ICE and #Not1More Deportation
WHEN: Tuesday, May 27, 2014 at 8:00 am
WHERE: Santa Ana Stadium (Civic Center Dr. W and N. Flower St.), Santa Ana, CA
Santa Ana, CA— LGBTQ immigrants and allies from across the country will converge with FAMILIA: Trans Queer Liberation Movement (FAMILIA: TQLM), DeColores Queer Orange County, and other community groups to proclaim “liberation, not deportation,” denounce the deportations separating families and communities, and call on Santa Ana to terminate its contract with ICE to imprison trans detainees at the Santa Ana City Jail. The rally will take place at Santa Ana Stadium in downtown to raise the profile of the 267,000 undocumented trans and queer immigrants and demand the city take action on behalf of the trans and queer people detained in often abusive conditions.
Valeria De La Luz, a Transgender Latina who was recently released from an immigration detention center in San Diego explains, “As one of my first acts of freedom, I want to demand the President stop all deportations and see to the release of so many LGBTQ people still detained in these detention centers.”
The Obama administration has deported a record number of more than 2 million people, including LGBTQ undocumented immigrants. Despite President Obama’s continued call for immigration reform and the current DHS review underway looking to revise deportation policy, undocumented queer and trans immigrants living in the United States continue to be persecuted by inhumane immigration enforcement policies and sexuality and gender based discrimination.
Attendees of the rally from across California as well as Arizona are part of launching national LGBTQ participation in the #Not1More deportation campaign demanding the President expand relief and reverse criminalization programs with particular attention to the heightened abuse of LGBTQ immigrants in the detention system and the violent risks they face if deported to their countries of origin.