hate – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Swastika in the Springs

David Posnett — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 15:35:35 +0000

Springs, East Hampton

A friend of mine found a swastika painted on a rock in her driveway in The Springs. Detectives were called and they took the incident very seriously. An investigation has begun. My friend notified the East Hampton Synagogue and they will notify their congregation. There is some other writing on the rock but do not jump to any conclusions. The detectives sent some folks over to remove the swastika. This is the first swastika incident that I am aware of in the Hamptons. This is all the information that I know of at present.
Rena Rosenfeld

Remove Lee Zeldin from the US Holocaust Memorial Council

David Posnett — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 07:38:32 +0000

Charlottesville protests

August 17, 2017

We are writing to publicly demand the removal of Congressman Lee Zeldin from the US Holocaust Memorial Council (USHMC) in Washington, D.C.. As a member of the USHMC, as a steward of our collective memory of atrocity, Lee Zeldin has a responsibility to work towards ensuring that identity-based hatred has no place in our society.

Lee Zeldin is failing in this primary responsibility. His official, tepid statement¹ about the hate rally this weekend in Charlottesville is unacceptable in its failure to call out Nazi and white nationalist movements as the cause of the violence. Instead, he effectively put Nazis and those opposing Nazis on equal footing, calling them both “ extremes that try to tear us all apart.” Most recently, Rep Zeldin has come out to support Trump’s defense of the white supremacist mob². While elected officials from both parties reacted immediately to condemn the president’s false equivalency as logically and morally reprehensible, as dangerous for our country, and a threat to democracy, Rep Zeldin placed himself on the wrong side of history. In Zeldin’s willingness to spread blame across white supremacist groups and those who oppose them, he gives outright license to the white supremacist cause and actions.

The Nazis are hearing these messages loud and clear. David Duke praised the president’s reaction. Neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer said: “Trump comments were good… He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about white nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.”

Americans all over the country are relying on our leaders to name and condemn identity-based hate immediately and in no uncertain terms. We are relying as well on institutions like the US Holocaust Memorial to uphold its mission to remind us of what happens to a democratic country when hate is used as the fastest route to power. It is unacceptable to condone—implicitly, through silence, omission, inaction, delayed action, or false equivalencies—acts of hate, while sitting on a board committed to protecting against them. Representative Zeldin should be removed from the US Holocaust Memorial Council until he acts with the integrity that the office demands by

1) demanding that Trump disavow Neo-Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, white nationalism, and fire White House staff who are allies to the alt-right,

2) demanding funding to fight white nationalism,

3) defunding Trump’s anti-immigrant budget proposals, and

4) protecting our immigrant friends and neighbors from deportation.

¹ https://zeldin.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-zeldin-statement-condemning-violence-charlottesville-va

² https://www.facebook.com/RepLeeZeldin/posts/816798751822244

Please sign the following petition: https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/remove-congressman-lee?source=c.em&r_by=18002441

Mara Gerstein, Show Up Long Island

Amy Turner, Zeldin Watch (PEER NYPAN)

Eileen M. Duffy, Let’s Visit Lee Zeldin

David Posnett MD, Resist and Replace

Chris Cangeleri, Organize, Plan, Act

Shoshana Hershkowitz, Suffolk Progressives

Julia Z. Fenster, ATLI, Action Together Long Island

Vincent Geary, Indivisible Patriots of Long Island

Susan Perretti, NCPG, North Country Peace Group

Rebecca Dolber, EEAN, East End Action Network

An Open Letter to our Fellow Jews

David Posnett — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 12:41:02 +0000

From my friend Larry Smith:

By Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman

Berkeley, California, 8/16/17

To our fellow Jews, in the United States, in Israel, and around the world:

We know that, up to now, some of you have made an effort to reserve judgment on the question of whether or not President Donald Trump is an anti-Semite, and to give him the benefit of the doubt. Some of you voted for him last November. Some of you have found employment in his service, or have involved yourself with him in private business deals, or in diplomatic ties.

You have counted carefully as each appointment to his administration of an avowed white supremacist, anti-Semite, neo-Nazi or crypto-fascist appeared to be counterbalanced by the appointment of a fellow Jew, and reassured yourself that the most troubling of those hires would be cumulatively outweighed by the presence, in his own family and circle of closest advisors, of a Jewish son-in-law and daughter.

You have given your support to the President’s long and appalling record of racist statements, at worst assenting to them, at best dismissing them as the empty blandishments of a huckster at work, and have chosen to see the warm reception that his rhetoric found among the hood-wearers, weekend stormtroopers, and militias of hate as proof of the gullibility of a bunch of patsies, however distasteful.

You have viewed him as a potential friend to Israel, or a reliable enemy of Israel’s enemies.

You have tried to allay or dismiss your fears with the knowledge that most of the President’s hateful words and actions, along with those of his appointees, have targeted other people — immigrants, Black people, and Muslims — taking hollow consolation in how open and shameless his hate has been, as if that openness and shamelessness guaranteed the absence, in his heart and in his administration, of any hidden hatred for us.

The President has no filter, no self-control, you have told yourself. If he were an anti-Semite — a Nazi sympathizer, a friend of the Jew-hating Klan — we would know about it, by now. By now, he would surely have told us.

Yesterday, in a long and ragged off-the-cuff address to the press corps, President Trump told us. During a moment that white supremacist godfather Steve Bannon has apparently described as a “defining” one for this Administration, the President expressed admiration and sympathy for a group of white supremacist demonstrators who marched through the streets of Charlottesville, flaunting Swastikas and openly chanting, along with vile racist slogans, “Jews will not replace us!” Among those demonstrators, according to Trump, were “a lot” of “innocent” and “very fine people.”

So, now you know. First he went after immigrants, the poor, Muslims, trans people and people of color, and you did nothing. You contributed to his campaign, you voted for him. You accepted positions on his staff and his councils. You entered into negotiations, cut deals, made contracts with him and his government.

Now he’s coming after you. The question is: what are you going to do about it? If you don’t feel, or can’t show, any concern, pain or understanding for the persecution and demonization of others, at least show a little self-interest. At least show a little sechel. At the very least, show a little self-respect.

To Steven Mnuchin, Gary Cohn, and our other fellow Jews currently serving under this odious regime: We call upon you to resign; and to the President’s lawyer, Michael D. Cohen: Fire your client.

To Sheldon Adelson and our other fellow Jews still engaged in making the repugnant calculation that a hater of Arabs must be a lover of Jews, or that money trumps hate, or that a million dollars’ worth of access can protect you from one boot heel at the door: Wise up.

To the government of Israel, and our fellow Jews living there: Wise up.

To Jared Kushner: You have one minute to do whatever it takes to keep the history of your people from looking back on you as among its greatest traitors, and greatest fools; that minute is nearly past. To Ivanka Trump: Allow us to teach you an ancient and venerable phrase, long employed by Jewish parents and children to one another at such moments of family crisis: I’ll sit shiva for you. Try it out on your father; see how it goes.

Among all the bleak and violent truths that found confirmation or came slouching into view amid the torchlight of Charlottesville is this: Any Jew, anywhere, who does not act to oppose President Donald Trump and his administration acts in favor of anti-Semitism; any Jew who does not condemn the President, directly and by name, for his racism, white supremacism, intolerance and Jew hatred, condones all of those things.

To our fellow Jews, in North America, in Israel, and around the world: What side are you on?

Because ICE Made A Typo…

David Posnett — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 09:39:44 +0000

Because ICE Made A Typo, These Kids Will Lose Their Dad In Just Days

Joel Colindrés, a beloved father of two with no criminal record, is facing imminent deportation to Guatemala.

By RJ Scofield (Patch Staff) – Updated August 2, 2017 2:40 pm ET

NEW FAIRFIELD, CT — Samantha Colindrés knows July 20, 2017, will go down in her family’s history as one of the worst days ever. That’s when she learned her husband, Joel, was given less than a month to end life as he knows it, abandon her and their two kids, leave his job and his home, and move back to Guatemala.

Joel Colindrés is not a criminal. He came to this country more than a decade ago. He is employed. He owns a house. He pays taxes. He does not drink alcohol and has never done drugs. He is, to his wife and two young children, the perfect husband, the world’s greatest dad.

That horrible day in July, though, he became one of scores of undocumented workers who had been granted permission to stay in the United States only to suddenly be ordered out as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping roundup of immigrants. That July 20, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told him to be out of the country by Aug. 17.

He had 28 days.

“That was when I collapsed,” Samantha Colindrés said in an interview with Patch. “I started screaming, I started crying, I couldn’t breathe and I was hyperventilating. … I kept screaming that he had two children, two small children.”

That day was only the third time she had seen her husband cry. The other two were when his two children were born. Son Preston is 6 now. Daughter Lila is 2.

Although Joel Colindrés spent years trying to follow the government’s rules to become a citizen, never so much as parking illegally, he now must leave his country of more than a decade because ICE misspelled his name in a court filing, according to his attorney.

Joel Colindrés is not alone. According to statistics reported by the Washington Post, the number of undocumented immigrant arrests rose by roughly one-third in the first months of the Trump administration. Most of those arrested had no criminal record — the type of people Trump, on the campaign trail, said he would not disturb.

“Joel is the epitome of the American dream,” the couple’s attorney, Erin O’Neil Baker, said in an interview with Patch. “He has built such a beautiful and successful life here for himself … but unfortunately he is also the epitome of what the Trump administration is currently doing, which is taking everyone who does not have legal status and grouping them all together.”

What Happened?

According to Joel Colindrés, a number of thoughts raced through his head while he was confined to the same immigration office where he had checked in twice already since May. This time, he was forbidden to leave until he received an ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts.

Twenty-eight days to get out, he was told. Twenty-eight days.

“I was totally in shock, and I didn’t know what to do,” he recalled. “It’s very hard knowing you have 28 days to leave the country. I have a lot of people that I love here, especially my kids.”

Joel Colindrés came to the United States 13 years ago from Guatemala through Texas via a legal provisional waiver. His wife and children still in his future, he headed to New York, where some relatives lived, and spent years going through the necessary steps to become a citizen.

The process was moving along. Then ICE officials spelled his name wrong on a document, the family’s attorney told Patch.

Due to the error, the attorney said, Joel Colindrés never received an important letter — and missed a court date as a result. He was then issued a removal order in 2004.

He continued sending necessary documents to ICE over the years, the attorney said, both when he was single and after he married and had his two kids. For years, he checked in regularly with ICE agents, as his waiver required, and everything was deemed fine, every time, for him to continue to stay.

In a response sent to Patch about the case Tuesday, ICE misspelled “Colindrés” as “Calinders.”

Below is ICE’s statement in full.

“Joel Calinders-Guerra, an illegally present citizen of Guatemala, was issued a final order of removal by a federal immigration judge in 2004. Since then he has sought relief from removal via several court actions and has been denied each. On July 20, during a routine check-in, ICE chose not to take Calinders into custody and instead placed him in a GPS monitoring program. He was instructed to report back to ICE with an itinerary as proof he intends to comply with his removal order.”

“We have been doing this process the right way for years,” Samantha Colindrés said.

Baker, the family’s attorney, said these types of mistakes are not uncommon. When an individual enters the United States, they might not have permanent residency, meaning they do not have a long-term address to give when they are first are detained by ICE, she said.

In many of these cases, the attorney said, an immigrant will provide the address where they are currently living, but may eventually move. And even if they give their new address to the court, sometimes there is a cross in the mail, and the court won’t receive the new address before the hearing.

“There are a lot of reasons why a person might not get the right notice for the right time and might not appear,” Baker said in an interview with Patch. “And really, that is a death knell to someone’s immigration history, unfortunately. It is extremely difficult to reopen a removal order and prove to the court that it is the court’s fault they did not get notice. The burden really falls on the individual to prove they have done everything proper in notifying the court.”

Before she took on the family’s case, Baker said the issue of improper notice was already litigated in full, with no success. So she said she will instead be filing a motion to reopen Joel Colindrés’ removal order with the board of immigration appeals on a different basis.

“We are moving forward on a strong argument that Joel cannot return to his country because there has been a systematic targeting of his family members,” Baker said, “and, unbeknownst to Joel, three of his family members were murdered in the last year.”

These murders only recently came to light. Joel’s family had kept it from him, Baker said, because they didn’t want him to be upset. (To sign up for free, local breaking news alerts from more than 100 Connecticut communities click here.)

A number of news stories have popped up this year about immigrants who were facing deportation, but were allowed to stay thanks to last-minute support from government officials. Recently, Norwalk resident Nury Chavarria, a single mother of four, took sanctuary in a New Haven church in an attempt to avoid deportation.

In that case, Chavarria was granted an emergency stay on July 26.

Samantha Colindrés is hoping her husband will be able to join the list of those who made headlines and were eventually permitted to remain with their loved ones in America.

“Their case is very strong in the sense that if Joel didn’t have this removal order, then he would be very easily eligible for residency,” Baker said. “He has an approved marriage petition and a pending waiver. Once that waiver is granted, the removal order is basically expunged. He is following the rules, the laws are in place, the policies are in place, he’s doing the normal process, but it’s this old removal order that is the hindrance, and all he seeks is his time here in [America] for the next six months so these pending applications can be approved.”

In the meantime, the couple is in “fight mode” — protecting the children from their father’s plight while preparing for the worst and working as hard as they can to push back against the order.

Fight Mode

“This was a day that will go down in history for all of our lives,” Samantha Colindrés said of July 20, “and one that I don’t think we will ever forget.”

Right after the couple received the bad news, they shared their story in a lengthy Facebook post.

“I never put stuff on Facebook,” Samantha Colindrés said. “Once in a while I post a cute kid picture or something, but nothing like this.”

They were originally unsure if the post would reach a lot of people. By the end of the weekend, though, it had already been shared 10,000 times. Since gaining traction on social media, the two have not stopped moving.

“We’ve been just go-go for the past week and half,” Samantha Colindrés said. “We just kind of went straight to fight mode, and we’re not going to stop until we get this story out there.”

The two held a rally Thursday in Hartford to #SaveJoelColindres, garnering the support of nearly 100 people.

The rally “was amazing, but it was also sad in a way,” Samantha Colindrés said. “We were seeing all this wonderful support, but for something that should not even be happening. It wasn’t the kind of support you see when someone gets a new job or has a baby; it was like support for somebody having to leave this country that should not have been given this notice in the first place.”

Support has also poured in from local government officials, including Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who said his office has been in close contact with the family and their attorney. He said his team is actively working with ICE to pursue every possible option for the Colindrés family.

“As a father of two young kids, I can only imagine the pain Joel is going through right now at the thought of having to leave his 6-year-old son Preston and 2-year-old daughter Lila,” Murphy said in an email. “The Trump administration once again is irresponsibly targeting families. I think we all agree that our limited law enforcement resources should instead go to deporting dangerous criminals.”

Samantha Colindrés said the first person she called after receiving the news of her husband’s deportation was Sen. Richard Blumenthal, another Connecticut Democrat with whom she had previously been in contact.

“The fact that ICE would give a father only 28-days’ notice to leave his wife and children,” Blumenthal said in an email, “leaving next to no time to pursue legal remedies, is cold, callous and reprehensible. ICE approved Samantha Colindrés’ application to sponsor her husband’s visa but is now deporting him before he can proceed through the process for obtaining legal status pursuant to that approved sponsorship.”

Blumenthal also said he thinks ICE should allow Joel Colindrés to follow through on that sponsorship rather than permanently upend his family’s life.

“This nightmare is the direct result of the Trump administration’s decision to remove all reason and rationality from its immigration policies,” Blumenthal said, “and I continue to implore the President to end this nightmare and commit to true, bipartisan discussions to reform this broken immigration system in a way that respects our fundamental American values and morals.”

Anger and grief aside, Samantha Colindrés said the huge amount of support her family has received is not going unnoticed.

“That’s really what has been lifting us up through all this,” Colindrés said. “The power of people and social media and strangers. I’m so thankful that in this day and age we have that kind of reach.”

She said she hopes her family’s still-developing story can inspire other people in similar situations to fight back.

“Never give up, and just keep fighting for what you believe is right. Don’t be afraid to share your story,” Samantha Colindrés said. “We’ve had our struggles…but [we] are not going to stop fighting for what we believe is right.”

Father, Friend, Husband

Although Samantha Colindrés and her husband have seen a huge outpouring of support since he received his deportation notice, they have also run into some people who think they might be hiding certain details.

“Some people will say there has to be more to the story,” she said. “That [Joel] must be a criminal or something. My husband has honestly never gotten so much as a parking ticket.”

She said her husband also does not smoke or drink, and has never done a single drug in his life. He is a man of strong faith, she said, who continues to pray every night while wearing his ankle bracelet.

“He’s everything anyone would want in a father, a friend and a husband,” Samantha Colindrés said.

The couple’s 6-year-old son is “very attached” to his father, she said — so much so that he sets his alarm for 6 a.m. every morning just so he can see his dad before he heads to work.

The couple has worked to make sure their kids are not exposed to what they are currently dealing with. Yet regardless of their success, they have had to consider what they’ll tell the kids, should their daddy be forced to leave for Guatemala this month.

“Luckily, with technology, we could FaceTime every day,” Samantha Colindrés said. “But even Joel said he can’t imagine being away from them. He had to meet someone the other day and ended up texting me, ‘I’m away from you guys for one hour and it’s hurting me. I can’t even imagine being away from you all for a day.’”

Although the thought of leaving his family weighs heavily on his mind every moment, Joel Colindrés said he still has much to be comforted by as he and his wife continue to fight.

On July 27, he obtained a delegation letter of support from Blumenthal, Murphy and Rep. Elizabeth Etsy. The letter asks that ICE give a stay of his deportation full and fair consideration.

“ICE has confirmed that Mr. Colindrés has committed no crimes, contributes to his community, is employed, pays taxes and is raising a family,” the letter reads. “He should be granted every consideration possible to remain in the United States and continue his pathway to citizenship.”

Joel Colindrés said he also takes comfort in the strong show of support he has received from neighbors and strangers in America — a nation he loves and will do anything to remain a part of.

“I just want to say thank you for all the support out there. This is an amazing country, and I love this country,” he said. “God bless America.”

Those looking to support the Colindrés family can sign their petition or donate money via a GoFundMe page set up by a friend to cover legal fees and other related financial burdens.

Follow the Save Joel Colindrés Facebook page for more information and updates on the family’s fight to #SaveJoelColindres.

Image courtesy of Samantha Colindrés

United Against Hate Rally

David Posnett — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 20:45:01 +0000

Submitted by Amy Turner:

The #unitedagainsthate rally took place on 7/28/17 across from the entrance to the Suffolk County Community College, Brentwood campus. Unfortunately we never saw Trump’s arrival, but that didn’t dampen the crowd’s spirits. I heard a crowd size estimate of 400, but it could have been larger. Thankfully, the protestors were incredibly diverse in age, race, ethnicity, issue of concern, and hometown, etc. The LGBTQ community had a large presence (motivated no doubt by the trans ban), as did a national group, refusefascism.org, whose members (mostly young people of color at this rally) are dedicated to “driving out the Trump/Pence regime.” The crowd also included a Latino group fighting to keep the temporary worker visa and members of most of CD-1’s anti-Zeldin groups. Pro-Trump protestors numbered from 20 to 90 tops. I must say it was gratifying to chant back at them: “Lock him up!” Of course, the highlight came after the rally, on MSNBC, as Zeldin struggled through an interview with Chris Hayes about Trump’s speech, advocating roughing up of suspects by police and referring to Long Island as “blood-stained killing fields.”.

If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out to remind yourself of Zeldin’s incompetence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N-J6vbQvRk

And this article has a transcript of the most embarrassing LZ pronouncments. http://ijr.com/the-response/2017/07/934190-republican-congressman-invites-tourists-come-enjoy-blood-stained-killing-fields/