How’s everybody doing? My name is Aquiles. I ended up calling a few Mondays ago in regards to immigration reform. Now, I just wanted to add a little bit more context to what I was saying before, because what I had thought about here was some of the colleagues that I work with in an organization that’s, you know, just happens to be working out of prison, the AACC [American Association of Community Colleges], the Know Your Smoke Initiative, led by a great friend of mine, Fuquan, we just been working on this new aspect of immigration reform because, you know, we did speak to Congress, the US Congress, in regards to a lot of issues that affect Black and Brown people nationally.
So, what we came up here on our side is something called the Second Chance Act. And the subject has to do with this: The subject of this matter has to do with highlighting the mitigating factors of migrants who came to the United States from ages 0 to 17. Taking into account that these individuals may not be citizens of this nation, they still fall under the protected class clause extended from the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Taking into account that these migrants had no say to coming into this country, but have lived in it for a time being and have adopted a culture of their new environment ultimately affecting their behavior.
The understanding that these individuals went into low income cities and disenfranchised environments that create a high crime culture — from ages 0 to 17, you are more inclined to be influenced by your environment and be directly affected by it. So, when someone who’s subjected to this environment recreates those illegal activities due to direct or indirect influence of their environment, you break the same laws that are relevant to the neighborhoods and cities who are most vulnerable to it.
So, the better question: What are your protections for those who are directly or indirectly affected by these environments if equal protection under the law that relates to the law of the land, and those who stand on it are directly attached to it? Because that should be considered as a mitigating factor in deportation relief, because the demographic that these immigrants are representing are the Black and Brown neighborhoods that are disproportionately targeted by authority because of hard time area policing. It becomes relevant that the minority class becomes the majority in prison systems. The immigrant demographic being a minority, along with Black and Brown community, and also the women fall under the equal protection also.
Asylum on a federal level does not consider this as a form of relief in the literacy of its litigation, excuse me, legislation. The 14th Amendment, United States Constitution, being at the federal level of the law, immigration law and all policies sharing the same level must be directly attached to the rights of the Constitution. The immigrant demographic is a minority and therefore a protected class. The immigrant population is directly involved in the fabric of the society. If a set person in the environment just so happens to be in a minority class, then the law must consider that and grant equal protection to and provide a [unclear] of solid relief efforts.
Now, the whole objective of the Second Chance Act— I’m just going to get to it now—and I feel like this is very important, just to recognize as a possibility of new legislation and taking these kinds of things into consideration. So, these are some of the things that will be established. So, the objective is to establish an understanding that the people directly involved in the fabric of the society must be directly involved in the laws and policies that govern it. So, raise awareness to the broken immigration system and the solutions to fix it, to make it fair for all people. The point of the matter is that those who came to United States from the ages 0 to 17 had no say on whether to come or not, and when these individuals break the law, they’re subject to deportation with no legislation to protect [them]. A citizen and a non-citizen are no different, but in status and so are both exposed to the same environment.
The law makes the immigrant experience in this country a criminal experience because there’s no law under the equal protection rights of the Constitution that considers the non-citizen who came to this country with no say in the process. The parents of these individuals, who are facing deportation, didn’t migrate for a new life, but a better quality of life, and those who are minors and commit criminal offense as a minor or into adulthood, who are affected by these environments that assimilate high crime culture, must be considered as well as a moral and ethical approach to progressive and relevant immigration reform.
If a non citizen breaks the law and has to pay a debt to the very society that they’re subjected to, then the opportunity to redeem themselves should also be granted, because if a non-citizen was never a part of society to begin with, then the penalty should be should not be given, considering that its law would only apply to the citizens of the nation, and therefore be subjected to deportation after the conviction is made, not after the prison sentence is served.
And I got to add emphasis to that, because something that has to be understood is like this; if a person doesn’t have rights to begin with, so, then the criminal law shouldn’t affect them. They should be deported right after they get convicted for whatever crimes that they’ve been convicted of. And serving a sentence after that will be irrelevant due to the Sixth Amendment, because you’re punishing somebody twice, not only are you making them serve extensive sentences based on whatever level of crime that they may have been convicted of, right, and they may serve 10, 15, 20, 30, years after being here since they were four or five years old, and you’re still deporting them to a foreign land that, you know, they probably don’t even know the language of, most of these most of these people, you know. But in continuation, the Sixth Amendment should be considered if the cruel and unusual punishment is applicable after the 14th Amendment is violated by the people that have jurisdiction to the land.
If the very structure of the government targets an immigrants experience in the United States, those on the land who are under this jurisdiction should be equally protected by it. In this time when immigrants’ experience is getting more common in the fabric of this society, the legislation must be drawn up to make a standing that if those who can get punished by criminal law they should also share its protection. And relevancy to those who have no say in coming to this land and becoming a part of its fabric; “Where’s the equal balance?” is a good question if the very structure weighs the odds directly against the very experience of the immigrant; if those who are subjected to be punished and targeted by the very structures of these systems are disregarded by current legislation, removing a fair balance for all.
So, you know, in consideration of what I just said, you know, currently it’s just raising awareness on anybody or any organization who may have listened to this recording. I just ask that you reach out, MCI Norfolk, AACC, Know Your Smoke, it’s all on the internet. And you know, you can directly contact us through there, or obviously through my name that I gave in my last recording, Aquiles, A, Q, U, I, L, E, S, S, E, R, P, A, Serpa, and my call number is W108013, so you can mail me directly and/or just contact those organizations that have I listed AACC, Know Your Smoke. So I just want to say peace to the human families of the planet Earth, and I appreciate you listening to this tape. Thank you very much.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
