Listen to this week’s interview with Arnoldo Garcia as he discusses the environmental and social justice issues associated with immigration, U.S. border control and the dangers that migrants face in attempting to cross a heavily policed, border war zone. Garcia also ties in the effects that border control issues have on the natural environment: to flora, fauna and water supplies.
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Arnoldo García is Program Director of the Immigrant Justice & Rights Program at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and heads up HURRICANE: The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network. Arnoldo edits Network News, NNIRR’s newsmagazine, and represents NNIRR on the regional coordinators committee of the “Liberty & Justice for All Campaign” with the Washington, D.C.-based Rights Working Group.
In 2006 Arnoldo launched a national community dialogue on ending militarization and State violence in border control and immigration enforcement. In 2007, Arnoldo was presented with the “Cesar E. Chavez Leadership Achievement Award,” recognizing his lifelong commitment to community organizing and defense of rights. His essay on the significance of the massive 2006 immigrant community mobilizations, “Immigrant Rights and Power: Transforming Social Justice, Dreaming A Different World,” was published by the Southern California Library for Social Research journal. In 2003, he edited the organizational report Human Rights & Human Security at Risk: The Consequences of Placing Immigration Enforcement and Services in the Department of Homeland Security and in 2008 he edited Over-Raided, Under-Siege: U.S. Immigration Laws and Enforcement Destroy the Rights of Immigrants.
Arnoldo is also a long-time cultural worker and musician; his work appears in XicKorea – poems rants words together (California, 2003), Chokecherries (New Mexico, 2005) and Hurricane Katrina: Response and Responsibilities (New Pacific Press, 2005).
