Help end the mass immigrant prosecutions of Operation Streamline

Operation Streamline has got to go!

Below is an action from our friends with End Operation Streamline. You might recall AFGJ’s Chuck Kaufman put his life and liberty on the line blockading a bus of detainees sent to that kangaroo court last year. We need your support in putting a wrench in the cogs of this immoral machine masquerading as justice. Your signature will help end a federal program that turns immigrants into criminals every day.

The petition to Operation Streamline lawyers reads:

I am writing because I think you care as much as I do about justice for defendants who appear in court. Operation Streamline was invented purely for the mass prosecution of immigrants as criminals. This fast-track system is wrong and must be stopped. I ask you to resign your participation in this court proceeding that that has huge costs for our country in terms of violated constitutional principles and millions of dollars a year in court and prison costs. I urge you to resign from your participation Operation Streamline, and to encourage your colleagues join you.

Hello friend,

As immigration reform languishes in Congress, activists all over the U.S. are stepping up pressure to stop deportations and the criminalization of innocent migrants.

Sign petition to end streamline You can help a Tucson effort to shut down Operation Streamline, a fast-track mass criminal prosecution of immigrants in Tucson federal court. Each day up to 70 immigrants are prosecuted en mass, receiving criminal sentences of up to six months in prison prior to being deported. These sentences often add up to more than five years prison time meted out each work day, costing over half a million dollars in Tucson alone.

We are going to throw a wrench into this migrant-criminalization machine by asking all the participating attorneys to recuse themselves from Operation Streamline. As a result, Operation Streamline will grind to a halt.

Sign the petition to send an email to all the Tucson attorneys who work in Streamline that asks them to resign.



Background on Operation Streamline

Through this program 70 immigrants are marched into the Tucson federal courthouse every day, clad in worn t-shirts and dusty jeans with hands shackled at the waist and ankles chained together. All 70 may be charged and convicted in as little as 30 minutes. The immigrants – many of whom have lived, worked, and raised families here for years – are compelled to accept a pre-arranged criminal plea. This plea results in sentences of up to six months in a federal prison prior to deportation.

Dan Rather Reports: Documentary on Operation Streamline

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court has twice ruled that aspects of Operation Streamline are unconstitutional. Yet these decisions have resulted in only minor procedural changes to the program. Operation Streamline does not contribute to public safety or deter people from crossing the border when they seek to reunite with family. What these criminal proceedings accomplish is to entrench an immigrant underclass with diminished rights and eligibility for immigration relief.

In Tucson alone, Operation Streamline costs a minimum of $96 million per year. The program is also used to mass-prosecute migrants in seven other border cities in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, with a total cost of well over half a billion dollars a year.

Read more about Operation Streamline and the unjust criminalization of immigrants at endstreamline.org.

Click here to help us throw a wrench into the Operation Streamline mass-criminalization machine.


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