FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Leavell virginia@mexicanossinfronteras.org (email to be placed on a list for regular updates) 202-674-0900 Virginia Activists to Expose the U.S./Mexico Border Immigrant justice activists from the state of Virginia will travel to Mexico and then cross the desert into Arizona without carrying government-issued identification. The action, organized by the Virginia-based activist network The People United, is scheduled to take place on April 19th. The crossing will formally end at demonstrations in Washington, D.C. organized by the immigrant justice organization Mexicans Without Borders on May 1'st . Jeff Winder, organizer with The People United and crossing participant, says, "We planned the crossing in order to expose the reality of a border where products move freely through ports of entry all day while human beings die in the desert. A militarized border does not make us safe; our safety will come when the vast disparities of wealth and power represented by trade policies like NAFTA are eliminated." Legislation in Prince William County, Virginia, requiring police to verify documentation for anyone under suspicion for having committed a crime and limiting county services to citizens, passed unanimously this fall despite a vocal struggle by the immigrant community and their allies. Other local governments are now looking to this resolution as a model for dealing with illegal immigration and over one hundred anti-immigrant bills surfaced at the state level during the current Virginia General Assembly. In Prince William County and across the state, immigrants have been detained for minor traffic offenses and face deportation and separation from their families. Sue Frankel-Streit, another The People United organizer and participant of the border crossing, comments, "With the climate in Virginia becoming increasingly racist and anti-immigrant, we need a creative, dramatic action to challenge injustice and spark more resistance among citizens." Patrick Lincoln, a Harrisonburg organizer with The People United, adds, "We want to make it clear that anti-immigrant policies, at the border and in Virginia, serve to divide us with fear, distract us from the real problems in our communities, create a vulnerable workforce, and feed the profits of corporations like Boeing and Halliburton, rather than limit immigration." Ricardo Juarez, coordinator of Mexicans Without Borders, says that the organization has endorsed the action to, "focus attention on the reasons why people are forced to cross the border in search of jobs and survival."

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