Community Rapid Response Training
When: Tuesday, February 20, 6:30-9:00PM
Where: Kehilla Community Synagogue (1300 Grand Ave, Piedmont, CA)
What: Join a team of volunteer responders to resist local ICE raids and deportations. At the training, you’ll learn how to verify ICE activity and be a legal observer in order to protect our communities from ICE. Refreshments and pizza will be provided.
RSVP and spread the word
During the election, I felt the danger of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric in my bones — like many Jews, my family story was shaped by movement across borders to escape state-sanctioned oppression.
When Trump was elected, I knew our Jewish community’s ability to resist would depend on building deep relationships with the people most impacted, including undocumented immigrants. It’s why I helped form Bend the Arc: Bay Area’s Solidarity Team.
Here are two moments I recently experienced that demonstrate how our Solidarity Team is making an impact:
At our final Let My People Stay vigil, Luis Angel Reyes Savalza, an immigration attorney and DACA recipient, shared with our group that he could hear our chanting and singing during a meeting with a client who is currently detained by ICE. When the client asked about the noise, Luis told him: “they are here for you — people are here for you.”
Two days later, at a Let Our People Go protest outside the Richmond ICE Detention Center, I met a DACA recipient who witnessed Bend the Arc’s historic civil disobedience in DC. She said “thank you — I see your solidarity and I won’t forget it.”
She also told me that in DC she had visited the Holocaust museum. We talked about how we need to show up for each other as members of different communities who have experienced oppression.
These experiences give me hope, and remind me of the core belief that keeps me in this work: When we stand together, we are all safer, and we can win.
Join me on February 20 at a Community Rapid Response Training in Piedmont for the next step in our immigration solidarity.
With gratitude,
Kendra Froshman, Bend the Arc: Bay Area leader
PS: Check out these photos of Bend the Arc: Bay Area leaders at a week of Let My People Stay vigils! Like our Solidarity Team Facebook group for updates on our work to pass a clean Dream Act by Congress' deadline of March 5th.
Sources:
1. CBS SF Bay Area, ICE Agents Target 77 Northern California Businesses In Immigration Sweep
