Wednesday, June 18th Casa and others in our Injured Workers' Coalition attended the legislative hearing before the Joint Committee for Labor and Workforce Development regarding 'An Act to Protect Injured Workers' H.2151/S.1310.
 

Casa spoke to worker stories on a panel with other worker centers including the Brazilian Women's Group, Brockton Worker's Alliance, and MassCOSH. Key allied professionals including attorneys in employment and Worker's Compensation specialties testified alongside representatives from MIRA. 

We continue to look to allies for reaching out to their elected officials regarding the bill, particularly those with legislators who may be unfamiliar with it. We are hopeful the Committee gives a favorable report on the bill. 

                                                                                    Photo Credit: Karen Price

Earlier this June, at the annual Spring Meeting of the Needham Area Immigration Task force, Casa staff Naren Roy and Diego Low provided updates for allies regarding the continuing work of supporting families torn apart by current Department of Homeland Security immigration policy. 

Then, a Casa Leader whose entire family was personally affected -- just one of many local to MetroWest, including the recent high profile case of local student Marcelo Gomes -- spoke directly to the community allies present. He recounted overcoming the many challenges of his time in the immigration detention system and stressed the importance of allies and immigrant neighbors sticking together while reminding the community at large that most of those affected on a daily basis by often cruel immigration enforcement tactics are NOT individuals pertaining to a criminal element. 


Read coverage by the Needham Observer's Julie M. Cohen who was present for this hybrid event.

Thank you to the Needham Area Immigration Justice Task Force for inviting us to table at the forum they co hosted earlier this week with Massachusetts Law Reform Institute’s Heather Yountz and the incredible Students Teaching Instruments to Create Community Harmony. It is essential to continue our education and collaboration amongst the ally community!

As we move deeper into the fall, we look back at our annual convivio celebrated at the end of August as a testament to the strength of the ever-growing Casa community. We continue to recognize the ridging of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural divides that not only occurs in Casa leadership spaces -- our concejo / directiva but which is happening in our day-to-day work, organizing with workers in wage theft / harassment cases as well as the multi-faceted immigration solidarity projects such as welcoming recent arrivals from Central America, south America, and Haiti. 

September, October, and November have brought and continue to bring direct engagement with clinics to support the sheltering and integration of Haitian families and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) processing for eligible families & individuals. Know-your-rights workshops for recently arrived folks more broadly, as well as the tiredless support of a good many un-accompanied or semi-un-acommpanied minors thorugh Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) visa work. Finally, we have the hope to train new volunteers in assiting families with self-help ('pro-se') asylum application preparation. Please stay tuned for details and dates to come soon! 

In solidarity,
Casa