by Anna Aschenbach, New Haven County Branch, WILPF

On Wednesday, June 23, 2010, our Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) branch presented “Speak Out! Voices of Immigrant Women, Denied Human Rights in the U.S.” at the Courtland Wilson Library in the Hill, with Anna Aschenbach as M.C. Theresa Zumbo photographed the entire event. Branch manager Melissa Canham-Clyne was a tremendous help.

A placard in front of the podium stated, “We are all immigrants.”

Many women could not speak because their immigration status was not entirely clear.

The first speaker was Samaher Hanania, a Christian from Bethlehem, Palestine. Her husband’s cousin, a sick man who is also from Bethlehem, had been arrested in front of her by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and put in jail with no notice, no warrant, no information on where he was taken, and without his medications.

The second speaker, Guadalupe Montiel, came with her translator who also spoke Mexican Spanish. She told about the march from Fair Haven to downtown for May Day 2010 on the Green, and their demands.

The last speaker, Elvira Cereni, told about escaping from Albania and her troubles with low-income employment in the U.S.

Attendance included three WILPF members, a Turkish man, a former Russian Olympic woman athlete and two representatives of ANSWER.

We handed out postcards in English and Spanish: “10 Myths about Immigration” from Tools for Change, Syracuse Cultural Workers.

Attorney Olia Yelner’s points to be included in a good immigration bill were read aloud. One attendee added: “No profiling.”

Most importantly, the three immigrant women speakers heard each other.

by Heiwa Salovitz, ADAPT

ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom. For information about an ADAPT chapter in New Haven, call (203) 887-0248 or e-mail cpmuslim@gmail.com.

One of ADAPT’s campaigns is the Community Choice Act (CCA). For a tax of six dollars a year, the CCA would help seniors to stay in their own homes instead of nursing facilities. People with disabilities would have funding available to help them live independently.

Community Choice Act: S 683 and HR 1670

Even with the recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), federal law still requires that states provide nursing facility care in their Medicaid programs without a similar requirement for home and community-based services. The Community Choice Act (CCA) levels the playing field and gives Americans a real choice in long term care by reforming Title XIX of the Social Security Act (Medicaid) and ending the institutional bias.

The Community Choice Act allows individuals eligible for services in a Nursing Facility, Intermediate Care Facility for the Mentally Retarded (ICF-MR), or Institutions for

Mental Disease (IMD) the opportunity to choose instead a new alternative, “Community-based Attendant Services and Supports.” Services can be provided at home, in school, at work and in the community. Assistance is available for a broad range for needs, such as bathing, dressing, meal preparation, money management and certain health related tasks.

In addition, by providing an enhanced match and grants for the transition to “Real Choice” when the benefit becomes permanent, the Community Choice Act offers states financial assistance to reform their long term service and support system to provide services in the most integrated setting

What would this program cost?

On average, a middle class taxpayer would only pay an additional $2.29-$6.07 in taxes annually for CCA, depending on CCA cost. If the cost was adjusted for inflation for 2010, the middle class taxpayer would pay an average of $2.40-$6.35 annually.

What would this program cost?  $6.07 a year.

For more information about the CCA and to learn more about ADAPT, call (203) 887-0248, e-mail cpmuslim@gmail.com or visit the website www.adapt.org

by Chris Garaffa, ANSWER CT

1,400 people took to the streets for the annual May Day march in New Haven. The march proceeded from Quinnipiac Park down Grand Avenue in Fair Haven. Marchers were loud, spirited and energetic, chanting “¡Obama, escucha, estamos en la lucha!” (Obama, listen, we are in the fight!) and “Full rights now!” as people from the neighborhood joined the demonstration.

A number of groups organized for the march, and people came from New Haven and the surrounding area, and as far away as Stamford and Danbury.

As the march ended, it fed into the Federal Plaza downtown for a rally. Speakers denounced the lack of progress on real and meaningful immigration reform in Congress, Arizona’s racist SB 1070 and the terror of ICE across the country. Speakers also condemned racist police tactics in New Haven and neighboring East Haven, where recent community action and an investigation into racial profiling caused Police Chief Leonard Gallo to be placed on administrative leave in April.

This year’s May Day marches were called as a follow-up to the March 21 march in Washington, DC, which drew a crowd of 250,000. Those in New Haven joined hundreds of thousands of others in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Austin, TX, Seattle, WA and across the country.