On November 12, the Supreme Court considered the Trump administration’s termination of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), deciding whether this action was lawful and possibly whether DACA’s creation itself was lawful. With the potential to impact the lives of 700,000 recipients, First Unitarian Portland signed on to an amicus brief in support of DACA. DACA recipients are the first to say that the protections they receive should be had by all immigrants. Regardless of the outcome of this case, DACA recipients will continue to demand reform of our immigration laws and a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States.

Action on the Border: Also on November 12, Dr. Scott Warren, a volunteer with the humanitarian non-profit No More Deaths (NMD), is being retried in Arizona federal court on two charges of harboring immigrants. An earlier trial on felony charges of conspiring to transport and harbor immigrants ended with a mistrial. In August 2018, A First Unitarian delegation traveled to the border for Faith Floods the Desert, an interfaith solidarity action, placing water in the desert in support of the work of NMD and other humanitarian volunteers in the borderlands. 

Action in Oregon: In October, our partner organization the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (IMIrJ) in conjunction with the Immigration Law Lab and the ACLU successfully lobbied at the Uniform Trial Court Rules Hearing for an end to ICE actions at the courthouses. The recommendation is to ban ICE officials from making arrests at the courthouse without a judicial warrant. Also, attempts by an anti-immigrant group (to overturn Drivers Licenses for All) passed by the Oregon Legislature, through Initiative Petition 43 were declared unconstitutional.