Visual Resistance

New Yorkers throughout this City’s diverse communities this morning awoke to messages calling for justice and equality for immigrants throughout the United States.

The messages, including “No Deportations”, “Legalization for All Immigrants”, “Rights for All Workers” among others, were painted on banners unfurled over prominent public sites throughout four boroughs.

The banners – penned in languages from English, Spanish, Korean, Urdu, Chinese and others - were dropped throughout the city in the early morning hours. Manhattan locations include 155th & Riverside Drive, 120th Street & FDR Drive, and Chinatown. Queens locations include the Queensboro Bridge and Jackson Heights and Brooklyn locations include the Prospect Expressway and the BQE.

With Bush’s national televised speech on immigration reform on Monday, this action is designed as the people’s response and follows recent national protests, including one in NYC on May 1 that drew out hundreds of thousands of people.

This also comes within New York City’s “National Week of Action” called to coincide with the Senate resuming Immigration Debates the same day of Bush’s immigration speech. Here is the press release for the national day of action.

Immigrants Demand Real Legalization & Reject Inhumane Compromises

As the Senate reconvenes on Monday, May 15th for the last stretch of its immigration reform debate, immigrants in New York City will join thousands across the country in a National Week of Actions from May 14- May 20 to say “No Deal!” to a three tier legalization bill, guest worker programs, increased enforcement, and border walls. Immigrants warn the Senate against compromising our futures with the bill on the table which has drawn mass opposition for its attempt to split up immigrant families and increase criminalization through expedited deportation and indefinite detention. Instead grassroots coalitions of diverse immigrant organizations stand firm in saying that immigrants deserve no less than:

(1) Legalization for all immigrants; No guest-worker programs of work & leave
(2) Improved and faster family reunification opportunities for all;
(3) Enforce the protection of human and civil rights by reducing detention & deportation, ending collaboration between the DHS and public agencies, and ending deaths & abuses of migrants at the borders;
(4) Non-compliance with the REAL ID Act and the guarantee of equal access to driver’s licenses for immigrants;
(5) Equal protection of labor rights of undocumented workers.

Also, check out our small, but hopefully growing, archive of immigrant’s rights artwork. All pieces are available for download and free dissemination.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Artwork Needed, Inspirations, In the News, Street Art / Graffiti. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.