Tuesday, February 19, 2019

The End Streamline Coalition

Our second session of the morning was with Nancy Myers, a volunteer with the End Streamline Coalition. The coalition is a group of organizations, community groups, and individuals who are working to end the mass criminalization and deportation of our immigrant sisters and brothers. End Streamline documents the prosecutions of asylum seekers in the Tucson Operation Streamline court proceedings. Its volunteers attend the Operation Streamline court proceedings that take place most weekdays at the Tucson Federal Courthouse.

The Tucson court prosecutes 75 individuals per day for illegal entry or illegal reentry by conducting group hearings. The process criminalizes the immigrant rather than processing them through the civil immigration enforcement system. Volunteers from the End Streamline Coalition serve as witnesses and try to help those detained with paperwork if they might be eligible to apply for asylum.

Nancy informed us that once convicted, first time offenders are returned to their home countries; those who are sentenced are sent back to their countries after serving their sentence.

An ACLU fact sheet on Operation Streamline is available here.

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