Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Latin America

CUNY Union Delegate Assembly Supports Migrant Caravan, Demands Asylum for Refugees

PSC CUNY represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York. Delegate members also donated more than $600 dollars for aid to the caravan in Mexico.

Left Voice

November 13, 2018
Facebook Twitter Share

Image credit: Reuters

The following statement was drafted and signed by members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), CUNY Delegate Assembly on November 8, 2018. The PSC CUNY union represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York. The Delegate Assembly is the leadership body of elected delegates drawn from the several different campuses of the University. Delegate members also donated more than $600 dollars to help La Izquierda Diario bring direct material aid to the caravan while in Mexico.

If you are a PSC CUNY member and would like to add your name to the statement contact James Hoff: [email protected]

PSC CUNY: We Support the Migrant Caravan

We, the undersigned members of the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York, affirm our unconditional support for the workers and families of the migrant caravan currently travelling through Mexico to the United States, as well as our opposition to the xenophobic response of the US administration and the right-wing militias that have threatened their safety.

As teachers and employees of the City University of New York (the largest and most diverse urban university in the country), we are all too aware of the challenges and struggles faced by migrant children and their families. Many of our students are from South and Central America. Many of them, like the members of the caravan, have fled violence, persecution, and poverty, (often direct products of US policy and intervention) only to sometimes encounter more of the same. Many of them are undocumented immigrants, who live daily with the fear that they will be forced to end their studies or that their families will be jailed and deported. We know the extraordinary contributions that such students have made to our university and our communities, despite these hardships, and we know that our society is richer thanks to their hard work and intelligence.

Like workers and unionists everywhere we support the universal right of voluntary migration and asylum, and we condemn the violence of our militarized borders, which arbitrarily separate working people and pit them against one another. We support the rights of all immigrant workers to organize themselves everywhere they live and work, and we welcome them into our unions as well as our communities because their presence makes us stronger.

We demand that the members of the caravan be given immediate sanctuary and asylum in the United States and we commit ourselves and our union to helping them in their travels, to aiding those who make it to the US regardless of immigration status, and to complete non-compliance and non-cooperation with any and all attempts by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to find, detain, deport, or otherwise harm undocumented immigrants. Further, we call upon rank and file unionists everywhere to join us in our defense of the caravan and to urge their union leaderships to organize material and political aid and support for all migrants wishing to enter the United States.

Jay Arena, College of State Island
Andrew Battle, Hunter College
Marcella Bencirenni, Hostos Community College
Nina Conelly, Graduate Center
Carrie Conners, LaGuardia Community College
James Davis, Brooklyn College
Iris Delutro, School of Labor and Urban Studies
Francine Egger-Sider, LaGuardia Community College
Meg Kallaman Feeley, Kingsborough Community College
Susan Fountain, School of Professional Studies
Barbara Gabriel, PSC CUNY
John Gallagher, Borough of Manhattan Community College
Jeremy M. Glick, CUNY
Joan Greenbaum, Graduate Center (Retired)
Maya Harakawa, Graduate Center
Jennifer Harrington, Baruch College
James Dennis Hoff, Borough of Manhattan Community College
Carol Huong, City College
John Hyland, LaGuardia Community College (Retired)
Ines Carrera Junco, Borough of Manhattan Community College
Susan Kang, John Jay College
Peter Kolozi, Bronx Community College
Andrew Levy, Borough Of Manhattan Community College
Marvva Lilly, John Jay College (Retired)
Angeles Donoso Macaya, Borough of Manhattan Community College
Graciano Matos, City College
Cecilia McCall, Baruch College (Retired)
Patricia S. Rudden, New York City College of Technology
Jacob Segal, Kingsborough Community College
Youngmin Seo, Laguardia Community College
Tonya Shearon-Patterson, CUNY
Constantino Spanagiotakis, New York City College of Technology
Anh Tran, Graduate Center
Carly Smith, Baruch College
Travis Richard Sweatte, Graduate Center
Lynne Turner, Graduate Center
Rachel Yowens, Laguardia Community College
Elizabeth Hovey, CUNY
Juan Ferre, Graduate Center
Tatiana Cozzarelli, Graduate Center

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

Latin America

Alfredo Cisneros, Mexican land defender from Michoacán, stands in a forest. He is the fifth land defender to be murdered in the country in 2023.

Alfredo Cisneros: Fifth Mexican Environmentalist Assassinated in 2023

Alfredo Cisneros Madrigal, indigenous leader and forest defender in Michoacán, Mexico was murdered on February 23. He is the fifth environmental defender to be murdered in the country so far this year.

Axomalli Villanueva

March 13, 2023

Lula Visits Biden to Repair Relations with U.S. Imperialism

Brazilian President Lula's U.S. visit shows that he's focused on maintaining the interests of Brazilian capital while aligning with U.S. imperialism and being careful not to alienate Beijing.

Caio Reis

February 16, 2023

SOUTHCOM Chief Aims to Increase Imperialist Plunder of Latin America’s Resources

U.S. Southern Command Chief Laura Richardson has expressed interest in lithium and other natural resources in South America. It shows the country’s commitment to corporate profits at the expense of workers, Indigenous people, and the environment.

Luigi Morris

January 26, 2023

The Peruvian Uprising: Massive Protests Demand the Fall of the Coup Regime and a Constituent Assembly

Peru has erupted in a massive uprising demanding that President Dina Boluarte resign, that the current Congress be shut down, and that a new constitution be established. The protests are the culmination of years of political oppression of the country’s indigenous communities, drastic poverty rates and precarity for Peru’s workers and poor, and a political regime that continues the legacy of Alberto Fujimori’s dictatorship.

La Izquierda Diario Perú

January 25, 2023

MOST RECENT

Customers clear shelves of water Sunday at Fresh Grocer in West Philadelphia.

A Chemical Plant Just Poisoned Philadelphia’s Water: A First-Hand Account of the Crisis

A company dumped thousands of gallons of poisonous chemicals into Philadelphia’s drinking water. This is an on-the-ground account by a Philadelphia worker and socialist.

Jason Koslowski

March 27, 2023
A group of protesters, in the front of whom are a line of protesters wearing red vests. In the front right corner, a white sign reds "vive la retraite," with a skeleton wearing a red hat in the middle of the sign on a black background with a text bubble on its left that reads, "oiv a bosse, c'est pas pour en crever!"

“French March”: The Right to Revolutionary Optimism

Evoking memories of '68, the students enter the fight against Macron. In our chaotic world, the future can only be built in the streets.

Eduardo Castilla

March 26, 2023

Joe Biden Is Deporting Russians Who Escaped Putin’s Draft — Let Them All In!

The United States is deporting Russians who sought asylum following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a heinous attack against war resisters and shows that the proxy war in Ukraine is about capitalist rivalry first and foremost.

Sam Carliner

March 26, 2023

On Monday, Germany Will Experience a “Mega-Strike”

On March 27, German railway workers and public sector employees will shut down the whole country. All trains are being canceled. Airports, freeways, hospitals, and daycare centers will all be affected.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 25, 2023