Correspondence - #21 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

ASIAN AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE ASIAN LAW CAUCUS May 4, 2021 Dear Mayor Sarmiento and Santa Ana City Council Members, My name is Melanie Kim with Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (AAAJ - Asian Law Caucus). On behalf of AAAJ - Asian Law Caucus, I am writing to ask you to vote Yes on Agenda Item 21 - the resolution in support of the VISION Act (AB 937 - Carrillo) on Tuesday, May 4. Thank you to Councilmember Phan and Mayor Sarmiento for putting it on the agenda. The VISION Act is a state bill that would stop the practice of transferring immigrants and refugees who have already been deemed eligible for release from being transferred by local jails and our state prison system to immigration detention. The VISION Act takes urgent and necessary strides toward ensuring that millions of dollars in local and state tax dollars are not used to put immigrants in dangerous health conditions in immigration detention and separate immigrant families and communities. Furthermore, the VISION Act addresses anti -Asian violence and puts an end to the cycle of trauma and violence for Black, Latinx, and Southeast Asian immigrant and refugee communities who are being double punished through incarceration and deportation. Countless refugee community members who survived war and violence and were incarcerated as youth are now being indefinitely placed in ICE detention in California due to ICE transfers. AAAJ - Asian Law Caucus is a proud co-sponsor of AB 937 because our organization serves Asian American communities that have been torn apart by ICE transfers and deportations. In particular, ICE transfers play a pivotal role in the perpetual displacement experienced by Southeast Asian refugee communities. In the 1970s and 1980s, fleeing war and genocide, child refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were resettled in California's poor neighborhoods with few, if any, culturally competent resources. Many Southeast Asian refugee children were born in refugee camps in Thailand, and never set foot in their parents' home countries. They came of age during California's prison boom and at the height of draconian and racist "tough on crime" policies in the 1990s. Living with unaddressed trauma, Southeast Asian refugee children were criminalized and given extremely long sentences for mistakes made as youth. Following decades of incarceration, many Southeast Asian refugees have finally earned their release from 55 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94111 T 415-896-1701 F 415-896-1702 w .advancingjustice-alc.org