WHO: The Right to the City Alliance, Safe Streets Strong Communities, Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition (OPPRC) and the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice are hosting an action and two day urban congress to dialogue and take action towards ending criminalization of communities of color in New Orleans and beyond.
WHAT: Action demanding that Mayor Landrieu divest from Orleans Parish Prison, let people go and that the Southern Regional office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stop the deportation of the Southern 32: a group of civil and labor rights defenders.
WHERE and WHEN: Protesters will depart from Mahalia Jackson Elementary School 2101 Freret Street, New Orleans, LA 70113 at 12:30pm. Location TBA day ofby local media contacts the. Right to the City Urban Congress will take place on June 7th and 8th at Mahalia Elementary School. Congress times- June 7th 9-4pm June 8th- 9 to 4pm. (Program attached)
VISUALS: Banner with faces and images of people who dies in Orleans Parish Prison. Painted Bloody handprints- representing Mayor’s “dirty hands” in supporting the brutality. Participants wearing black to represent mourning. Prayer vigil outside of ICE’s office.
SPOKESPEOPLE: Delmy Dinora Palencia Gonzales-mother, a member of the Congress of Day Laborers, and a civil rights defender. She faces deportation after ICE retaliated against her for standing up against racial profiling and abuse of power by local law enforcement. Donald Chopin and Norris Henderson will speak to conditions in OPP.
WHY: PROBLEM- New Orleans has the highest incarceration rates in the world and has a regional ICE office that is notorious for its complicity in civil and labor rights violations in the South. In New Orleans, like cities all across the country, millions of dollars go into policing and locking up people of color, and little is invested into schools, jobs, housing, healthcare and other basic needs. Two years into Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s tenure, the violence, sexual assault and death at Orleans Parish Prison has not abated. Despite the efforts of groups like OPPRC, the Landrieu administration has not taken responsibility for the conditions at
Orleans Parish Prison, nor made any firm public commitment to assist in moving the reform
process forward. This is unacceptable. Simultaneously, immigrants who participated in the reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are being targeted for deportation once they organize to defend their civil and labor rights.
SOLUTION- Our organizations will be protesting to demand that Mayor Mitch Landrieu reinvest in the public sector of New Orleans and divest from the Orleans Parish Prison as the brutality and abuse towards the incarcerated persists. We also demand that ICE use prosecutorial discretion to stop the deportations of the Southern 32- a group of immigrant organizers and activists being targeted for deportation. On June 7th, We will be meeting at to present our demands. June 7th and 8th, organizations across the country will be presenting on the topic of criminalization in our communities. This historic event is in light of the recent awareness of Louisiana as the incarceration capital of the world, and the increased awareness of police brutality and stop and frisk policies in cities across the country. Right to the City Alliance fights for just, sustainable and democratic cities in the US and beyond.
Model shares will include the following:
- Orleans Parish Prison Reform Campaign- to reduce the prison size/end the per diem system and increase investment into schools, jobs and infrastructure that strengthen communities of color Holding Police Accountable Campaign (Safe Streets Strong Communities)
- Campaign to stop ICE deportations (New Orleans Workers Center)
CORI campaign from Massachusetts that led to banning the box on government applications statewide (Boston Workers Alliance)
Campaign to stop the school to prison pipeline (FFLIC, YASS, Padres y Jovenes Unidos)
Redistricting Campaign (New Orleans Roundtable)
