Genesee County Democratic Socialist of America and GLOW Community Alliance (GLOWCA) organized a Stop the Build rally at City Hall in Batavia on Sunday.
From a provided press release:
“We have come together today as a part of the Good Trouble Lives on nationwide weekend of action. Our country is currently facing the most brazen rollback of civil rights in generations,” says Gina Schelemanow, the Chair of the Genesee County Democratic Socialists of America branch.
John Lewis was a civil rights activist who believed in coming together to take peaceful, non-violent action to challenge injustice. We are here to honor and continue his legacy as our nation faces a renewed effort to suppress the voting power of black and brown communities. We will not sit idly by as our country dismantles the Voting Rights Act and anti-voter bills are pushed through congress. John Lewis firmly believed in reaching out to community members and sharing the message of civic engagement, voting, and civil rights. We organized this event with our friends at GLOW Community Alliance because we understand that we are stronger together. When we join together and organize against the capitalist system, we can win real change for everyone.
“The Democratic Socialists of America want a democracy powered by everyday people, not the capitalist class. They want us to believe we are powerless but all of you being here today shows us that we are not. We can talk with each other, organize, and build community to stand up to those in power,” says Schelemanow,
Our community is currently facing another threat in the form of the proposed expansion of the Buffalo detention center located in Batavia. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has announced a plan to expand the Batavia detention center with 100 new beds. The current Detention Center has 650 beds and is consistently over capacity leading to overcrowding and poor conditions inside the detention center. We have all witnessed the current administration’s abhorrent treatment of our immigrant neighbors, abducting them off the street and disappearing them into their vast network of detention centers, making it difficult for family members to get into contact or even know where their loved ones are. As residents of Genesee County, we are standing up here today to make it absolutely clear that we do not want an expansion of the detention center in Batavia. This is not who we are as a community and we will not stand for this. Today we make our voices heard.
As important as it is to be standing here we need to continue to take action. I would encourage everybody here to talk to somebody that they haven’t talked to before, get to know your neighbors, and work towards building the community that we want to be. I know it can be hard to go outside of your comfort zone but we need each other to achieve the change we want to see in the world.
On Wednesday, July 22nd from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the YWCA in Batavia, NY, Genesee County DSA and GLOW Community Alliance are partnering with Rochester Rapid Response Network on an information and practice your rights session. The Rochester Rapid Response will teach about the local history of immigration detention and help us practice our rights if we find ourselves interfacing with ICE.