[dropcap size=big]L[/dropcap]OS ANGELES- Under the forever hot downtown Los Angeles sun, a coalition of Black organizations and immigrant-led groups decades in the making came together to stand up for Haitian immigrants at the Mexican border after photos circulated internationally of Border Patrol agents whipping and corralling Black Haitian refugees at the border.
Led by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and supported by Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, SEIU 721, CHIRLA, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Los Angeles Black Worker Center, Little Tokyo’s Nikkei Progressives, and many more- the press conference, like many actions in Los Angeles, turned into a rally where community members showed up to chant, cry and embrace each other with one goal, give light to the work ahead to stand up for Haitians at the border and overall struggle to make known the immigration is a Black issue too.
“We want the Biden administration to immediately grant humanitarian parole to all Black asylum seekers at the border. We want the Biden administration to stop expelling and deporting Haitian immediately and other Black asylum seekers and immediately revoke the racist Title 42 order and immediately end the metering system that is being used to process asylum seekers at the U.S-Mexico border” Maraky Alemseged, the Los Angeles organizer for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration tells me on Wednesday after spending the last 24 hours following up with the coalition after the press conference on Tuesday.
Born to two immigrant Ethiopian political rebels, Maraky grew up in Los Angeles, always knowing that the work towards freedom was an international struggle. “When I was a child, their organizing work continued to organize issues affecting Ethiopia...I can remember constantly going to the embassy, and my Mother, who was a caterer, constantly catered food for political, organizational meetings. They’re both still part of that organizing.”