Category Archives: Viva!

“God willing, someone will take pity on me soon.”

My name is Maria*. I have been living in the U.S. for 14 years, but now I am in immigration detention in Illinois. It is painful and exhausting when you don’t have anyone’s support. Being incarcerated because of this country’s immigration laws can be terrifying, and people, out of fear, can be scared to help you. On top of that, it is very expensive to hire an attorney. This is what I am going through now. I need an attorney because my court date is soon and I have no idea what I am going to do. My daughters are what I live for and our separation is painful to me. Especially because I have an 8 month-old baby. My daughters need me! I feel so abandoned because the only family I have are my daughters. They are suffering and cry every day for me because I don’t have the money to pay for an attorney or for bail. Oh my God, this is so hard, because I just want to be with my daughters.

My story is a long one, but the nightmare began on January 11th, 2018 when I had to go to court in Kankake, Illinois. Coming out of the judge’s room, Immigration officers were waiting for me. They took me into a room to arrest me. They asked if I had children and I told them I did. But I was in shock. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. At that time I had left my 10 year-old daughter and my 7 month-old baby at the house, because I thought I was going to go back home, that everything would go the same way it had in the past. But it wasn’t like that. I pleaded with the agent to let me speak to someone so that they could go and pick up my daughters, but they were rude and didn’t care. They were heartless. The man was Filipino and I thought to myself, how could someone who is also an immigrant have so much hate, or racism, to deport a fellow immigrant from this country?

I am a single mother and I work 7 days week. Everything that one does is just so that their children can have a better life than one’s self. Anyway, later they took me to Chicago and there they took my fingerprints, etc. After their routine search — a horror — I began to realize what was happening and started to cry. I called my Consulate, but they were no help. On the contrary, they told me I’d soon be deported. Wow, what a thing to say.

But the nightmare didn’t end there. I was able to speak to my daughter by telephone and I told her to call our neighbor so that she could come and get her and my baby. From that moment I haven’t been able to see my little girls, even my little one. That very same day I was taken to the McHenry jail, supposedly only temporarily. I started to cry again, and to this day I am praying for my release. The food isn’t the best but I don’t complain because our Father blesses me every day. I ask that I will see my daughters soon. I am looking for a lawyer to take my case here, but it is very slow. My court date is soon and it scares me to think what will happen in court without anyone to represent me. But God is my rock and my protector in the face of this situation. I only ask for a miracle and for some mercy for this mother that is suffering every day, as are all of my companions in here with me so far from their children.

I don’t have money to buy things, like shampoo, but I don’t need it because I know soon I will be getting out of here. I just need help taking up a collection for when I am released on bail, because I need to get back and see my daughters. My heart breaks when I have money to call them and they cry and tell me they love and me and want me to come back soon. My littlest one is with her father (or with my second relationship) but he won’t answer the phone. All I want to know is how she is. I don’t have any control over this because I am in the hands of the enemy.

At times I feel like what I imagine the Jews felt in the times of Hitler because you don’t know what is going to happen to you or where they will take you. When the immigration officials come they are almost like devils, and no one wants to ask about their case out of fear that they will be deported as a result. This is what they have told me happens: that if a girl asks any sort of question about her case she is then deported within days. It’s painful to see all of these cases. We are not criminals. I did not kill anyone; I am only a mother, one who wants to see her daughters grow, to raise them and shape them into respectable women. Please, help us immigrants — we are all brothers and sisters. What brought us here was family, our children. Blessed God, I give my case over to you. You are love; give us strength to overcome this suffering. I hope someone will help me.

Sincerely,

Maria

*Not her real name

Translated by Katherine Guillen from a letter written to us in Spanish.

Editors note: We’ve attempted to follow up with Maria, but she no longer appears in the ICE Detainee Locator. We are hopeful that she has been released on bond.

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“God willing, someone will take pity on me soon.” was originally published in IMM Print on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Online Tool Allowed Anyone to Track Phone Locations for Free, And You Should Be Worried

via aleksey godin – thanks – scary stuff out there in innocent sounding apps news-location-tracking-featured.jpgThis story is more than just a little scary. Your cell phone location could have been searched for free by absolutely anyone thanks to an online service. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare. That’s right – you may have been being tracked and didn’t even know it, and there’s nothing you could have done to stop it. The Discovery This phone location-tracking was first discovered last week when The New York Times reported that location data provided by a phone-tracking company, Securus Technologies, was being used for a former Missouri sheriff. He would track cell phones without filing for a court order. But this sheriff wasn’t the… Read more

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Anne Frank’s family tried to escape to US, hit roadblocks

via aleksey godin – and Trump repeating racist policies

BERLIN (AP) – Research suggests the family of Anne Frank, the world famous Jewish diarist who died in the Holocaust, attempted to immigrate to the United States and later also to Cuba, but their efforts were thwarted by America’s restrictive immigration policy and the outbreak of World War II.

The …

Trump says U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods could exceed $500 billion

He thinks it is a TV show and we are the ones who pay for his mistakes. WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States may ultimately impose tariffs on more than a half-trillion dollars’ worth of Chinese goods as the world’s two largest economies hurtled toward the start of a trade war.

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Immigrant Kids Separated From Parents to Receive Legal Representation Via LA Justice Fund Thanks to LA County Supes

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion to extend a pot of money called the Los Angeles Justice Fund to kids and parents separated after crossing the border into the United States. According to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, 104 of the thousands of immigrant kids removed from their parents are currently in LA County or in the greater LA area. (None of the separated children are in the custody of LA County, however, according to county officials.)

“LA County will always stand with immigrants and asylum seekers,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who authored the motion with Supervisor Janice Hahn, and who championed the creation of the LA Justice Fund.

Immigration courts have served kids as young as three years old notices to appear in court, Solis and Hahn noted in their motion. Lawyers are not appointed to represent the kids in court. Instead, the children are handed a list of organizations that may offer them legal help.

“No one in this country, let alone a small child, should be forced to defend themselves in court alone,” Hahn said. “LA County has already voiced its strong opposition to the policy separating families at the border, and with this action today we can do our part to help these children as they navigate the court system to be reunited with their families.”

The LA Justice Fund is a $10 million partnership between LA County, the city of LA, the Weingart Foundation, and the California Community Foundation. A total of $2 million came from the city, $3 million from the county, and $5 million from philanthropic organizations.

So far, seventeen non-profits in Los Angeles County have received $7.45 million from the LA Justice Fund to provide legal representation to immigrants facing deportation under the Trump Administration.

The grantees include Public Counsel, the Loyola Immigrant Justice Legal Clinic, the USC Immigration Clinic, Southwestern Law School’s Immigration Law Clinic, and the Vera Institute of Justice’s Center on Immigration and Justice.

“Los Angeles County has not stood idly by as this Administration abuses children and their parents who are simply trying to escape poverty and violence,” said Solis. “Family separation is cruel and a grave injustice for the more than 2,300 children who were physically torn away from their parents.”


Image courtesy of the office of LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Schmidt’s School Sabotaged or Misled? Or Just a mis-understanding?



After the overwhelming reaction from the local community about the announcement of the MoHE Jerusalem Unit regarding the transfer \ donation\selling (the truth is still unknown) of the belongings of the School’s museum that consisted of mummified animals and species, I decided to dig in some research. After all, we should always maintain the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s discuss what findings we have in this regard:

– an official announcement from the Ministry of Higher Education condemning the activities conducted by the school and demanding clarification.

– Photos from the exhibition in Tel Aviv University’s Natural History Museum. (3 photos)

– One of the images is entitled: “Father Ernst Schmitz Collection 1845-1922. The History of collecting in the land of Israel.”

The statement on the image is the following: “ Father Ernst Schmitz. A German priest and archaeologist served in Jerusalem as Director of the German Association of the Holy Land from 1908 until his death. He researched the fauna of the land and its environs, established the first nature museum in the Holy Land, and left a collection that provides rare documentation of the landscapes of the country and its biodiversity as it was 100 years ago, including species now extinct in Israel and the region. As a collector, he also obtained animals from different places around the world. For many years the collection was preserved in the basement of the St Paul Hospice(known as Schmidt School) in East Jerusalem where the association established a museum to showcase its contribution to the exploration of the Holy Land in different fields. The collection is on permanent loan and display at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History. ”

– The second photo is about the belongings themselves; A lot of them.

The second photo is very familiar with what it consists. I could relocate most of the items in the vast museum (basement) where it was born.

The first photo reflects clearly on how heritage and history are being falsified.

Going through the Tel Aviv Museum Annual report of 2008\2009, the same Father Ernst Schmidt had a whole chapter about his findings. I think there was not enough coordination with the information provided on the exhibition and the report regarding the data and the outcomes, as the first findings were in Haifa, where the man also died.

In the report quite exciting ideas are there: “In 1908 he was chosen to succeed the Vincentian priest Wilhelm Schmidt (1833-1907) as director of the establishment in Palestine of the Deutschen vom Heiligen Lande”, a German Catholic organization that kept hospices and supported centers for pilgrims in the Holy Land. In September of that year, he moved to Palestine, to direct the hospice of St Paul in Jerusalem,, where he remained until 1914.

In the hospice, he founded a natural history museum, with a section for the specimens collected in Palestine and other example brought from other regions, which included 45 stuffed birds and 157 plant samples brought from Madeira. To enlarge his collection, he organized field trips and asked students and locals to bring him animal and plant specimens. ….with the outbreak of world war 1, he was forced to go to Damascus, where he remained there until he could return to Palestine .since 1920 he ran the hospice of San Carlos in Haifa. He died in Haifa and was buried in the crypt of the convent of the German religious mount Carmel. “+

Why am I mentioning all this? From one hand it is informative. It entirely reflects on a heritage of the place and the species in it . from the other hand, and it says clearly how information is forged in the same source. To start with the naming. The exhibition says it is the land of Israel, and the research keeps repeating the word Palestine.

I don’t want to go to the endless discussion, was in Palestine, was there any Palestine? Even Palestine according to the research above is before the Mandate creation of the state.

This man created according to the research the first museum of its kind in the basement of St Paul, Schmidt’s school, while in the exhibition the reader would imagine a bunch of valuables stacked in a basement.

So here,

We are not talking about a misinformation. The ministry of Education acted upon the situation when they knew about it, and somehow it was only possible to know about it when an exhibition was announced.

It is of course other Authority’s responsibilities and obligations to have been aware of what is happening in the school.

I have to say, that in a rare case with me, I have to defend the PA. The PA can hardly manage institutions in Jerusalem due to the significant pressure that is encountered on the PA and the institutions by the state of Israel. Many don’t know about the existence of the museum inside the school. But it is part of every single graduate heritage. It is part of a collective memory of how we received our education and how we are related to that school. It is not a surprise that the minister of tourism or the environment or education knows about. It is the responsibility of the school administration to maintain and inform and provide information to the officials and families.

The school has undergone significant changes in its administration, which can explain the communication and the understanding of the society. But the link of Shmidt is an integrated relationship between the school and the community. This is why it has not been an impossible task to perform with the new administration. This is one major institution of Jerusalem and Palestine when it comes to education.

As a student of Schmidt’s, and as a resident of Jerusalem, and as a Palestinian who truly believes in a life that can only be better through proper education. Education that is not about books and scientific information just, but ethics, integrity, and morality. Knowledge of such, that Schmidt’s Girls College inserted inside its students for a generation, to bring about the best changes that can be added to this society despite all the difficulties and injustices.

It sounds not only painful , but it feels as if it is part of a treachery , a treason to all of us who consider this school as part of our identity , to go around the heritage, culture, the richness, the growth that Schmidt had helped build together with the locals of this country and the students along his path in bringing enrichment and progress to the different civilizations.

Germans have always been part of what makes us stronger, regardless of the historical responsibility of Germany towards the outcome of the second world war and the immigration of Jews to Palestine. However, this school has always been part of what orchestrates the heritage of Jerusalem.

As we also believe in building peace in this country. Ignoring the Palestinian authority in Jerusalem is violating to the status of Jerusalem. We don’t have to discuss international law here or even local laws. The apparent violation of all regulations is in the statement above that mentions the “land of Israel” to the collection. But I Don’t want to discuss this. It is obvious and does not need clarifications or accusations. It is a clear violation.

But then, how can the school with its administration and with the representative office allow this to happen? How could they jeopardize the trust of the people of Jerusalem for more than a century towards this school with not even thinking twice to consult graduates, or teachers or families or current students? This is an ABC in the status of Jerusalem.

It is of course not a surprise for Tel Aviv University, that is by default standing on the ruins of Sheikh Muawannes. But the

 

 


Germans ?

I hope that the school administration and the German representative office and the German officials elsewhere take responsibility and fix this horrific act immediately.

 

+ Chapters in the history of the National Collections of Natural Histroy of Tel Aviv Universtiy . Annual Reprot 2008/2009