A group of young high school students in Calhoun, GA, a rural community about 1.5 hours from metro Atlanta, are sowing together small pillows for Sen. Johnny Isakson, with the hopes raising awareness about the complex daily plight of thousands of undocumented youth living in this country. Nevermind that Sen. Isakson favors restrictionist policies on immigration and is looked on as a champion by anti immigrant organizations like FAIR and Numbers USA. They are members of the group Latinos for Justice and Education Organization, a group at its infancy, in the state of Georgia, where the influx of immigrants has dramatically increased by fifty percent and ranks as one of the top ten states with the highest foreign born population. Children born into immigrant families make up 16.5 percent of the total population of children in Georgia and are coming of age into a society that does not welcome their families.
These demographic shifts in several southern states are not uncommon and neither is the domestic and international migration. North Carolina, which has become a popular destination for migrants, now boasts 1.4 million immigrants living in the state and it is continuing to grow. Like Georgia, North Carolina which depends on the immigrant workforce for construction, farmwork and transportation jobs, also has a significant population of immigrant children and youth.
This is the same state, where State Senator Phil Berger (R-26), a staunch conservative, introduced a bill that will ban undocumented students from enrolling in any North Carolina colleges. Last year, the State Board of Community College stopped admitting undocumented students in the state colleges and forced the colleges to send out letters to over 112 students asking them not to return for the next semester. Members of the Coalition for College Access composed of students from N.C. State, UNC Asheville, UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina A&T State University have been fighting back against this bill and organized protests at their campus urging other students to support them in their efforts for equal access to higher education. Similarly, students in Arkansas through the Arkansas Youth Thinking Ahead group have been fighting in support of Senate Bill 799, a bill that would have introduced in-state tuition access for undocumented students.
And their efforts do not stop there. This week, in solidarity with other progressive campus groups, the Coalition for College Access protested Tom Tancredo at the University of North Carolina at an event hosted by the right wing student group Youth for Western Civiliation. Tancredo, the former congressperson from Colorado, once called on ICE to arrest Dream Act students at a press conference minutes before giving their congressional testimony. Conservative bloggers and media immediately began attacking the Coalition for College Access and other allies as “violent dream act supporters”. Additionally, in the video below, ALIPAC’s president goes as far as comparing the protest to attacks made to African American and their homes in the south. This comment comes from the same organization with ties to right wing hate groups acoording to the Southern Poverty Law Center
Clearly, Dream Act organizing in the South needs our support and solidarity.
