- It's been a very painful tattoo.
And it's really deeply a penance that I wanted to pay
for having not been there for my brother.
My friend Haji always asks, "Do you like it?"
And I tell him, "No, I hate it, I hate it,"
because I wish with every ounce of my being
that this tattoo didn't exist,
that this conversation wasn't happened,
that this wasn't the reality of my life.
I wish my life was different.
(somber music)
I've seen police look our way and shake their head.
We're not going anywhere, you can shake your head
at us all you want.
You're gonna have to stand me, you're gonna have
to fathom my rage until we have justice.
(applause)
My name is Zaira Livier, I am co-founder
and director of People's Defense Initiative.
I shy away from describing myself as an activist,
most of the time.
An advocate for human rights, I'd prefer.
The Free the Children Coalition stands united here today
demanding an end to Stone Garden Federal Grant Program
in Pima County which leads to racial profiling,
leads to more detention, leads to more deportation,
leads to more permanent family separation,
which is what deportation is.
What Stone Garden is is a grant that's given
to border counties.
Under that grant, Pima County Sheriff's Department Deputies
double as immigration enforcement agents.
- [Woman] And it's time for us to say no, thank you.
- [Zaira] Organizations joined together and decided
to lobby the hell out of the Board of Supervisors
and put on an all out reject Stone Garden funds campaign.
- That's a pain I don't wish anyone ever has
to experience in their lives.
I was 19 years, and I had to fight
my mom's deportation case.
All this because local police collaborated
with Border Patrol.
- It still baffles me that people like myself
and like Mike Amarala here have to stand
in front of crowds to go, "Hey, look,
"we're human and we hurt just like you."
I'm from Querétaro, Querétaro, which is just north
of Mexico City.
My mom was born in Querétaro, my aunt was born in L.A.,
so we have a long history of traveling back and forth.
Eventually things at the border changed.
My mother needed to get us to Tucson
because of a family emergency.
And they wouldn't let us cross
because we didn't have a visa.
We were caught over and over and over again
as my mother and myself and my brother.
My aunt was like, "You know what,
"we're just gonna walk in."
I was holding a juice box and we said, "U.S. citizen,"
and they let us through, and that was that.
The trick was to not look like immigrants
and to know a little bit of English.
My mother and I have been here ever since.
My brother was deported some years back.
- [Group] Of the United States of America.
And to the republic for which it stands.
One nation, under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
- [Zaira] Alright, so we'll get started
with quick introductions.
- We got a racial profiling law enforcement
and community partnership committee,
which I am the chair of right now.
- This time next week I will be at the White House
chairing a panel discussion with sheriffs
and ICE and Border Patrol national representatives.
So your voice will be heard a week from today
at the White House.
- Being there across the table from a person
who really wants a grant, and you think
you're not gonna get it and he's the highest
law enforcement official in our county,
it wasn't easy, and it was very stressful.
- There's a lot that's good that has come out of this.
What I don't want us to do is to transfer those monies
over to people we can exercise no such relationship with,
which is where those monies will go.
- [Zaira] I give the sheriff credit.
He is a person that you can have a conversation with.
We got a racial profiling policy.
The Sheriff's Department had never had
a racial profiling policy.
Alright, so all in favor.
- [Man] Yes.
- All opposed.
- [Woman] Aye.
- [Woman] Aye. - [Man] Aye.
- It was a beautiful thing, we were the only county
in the entire United States to turn that down.
For the Bernie Sander's Campaign I just founded
and created a group called Latinas for Bernie Sanders.
That was the first time that I ever volunteered my time
to anything political.
That primary was coming to a close
and I was approached by a Phoenix group
who was putting Prop 206 on the state ballot in 2016,
and that is the minimum wage
and earned paid sick time initiative.
Vote yes on Prop 206.
We passed that overwhelmingly.
That campaign changed my life.
Trump also won, I was devastated,
so I think I was in bed for like two weeks.
And then I got up and I started organizing
around immigrant's rights.
We're finally seeing that we're building
some political power.
The Democratic Socialists of America,
at least the folks here locally, are young,
they're in college, they're itching to work on something.
The ground is ripe in Tucson for young,
progressive people like us to go in there....
Being a grass roots organizer, I learned so much,
and I unlearned a lot of things,
one of them being change happens from the top.
That's not true, the democratic party's our friend.
That's also not true.
That Trump is the boogeyman and everything's his fault.
That is also very much not true.
Obama deported millions of migrants.
He deported my brother.
His name was Memma.
Once he got older he wanted people to call him Sayed,
but I've never called him that.
We grew up and we both had our behavioral issues.
When I would get mentors and teachers
that wanted to help me, he would instead get suspended,
sent to juvie.
He ended up getting in trouble
right when he turned 18.
He didn't hurt anybody, he went in for six years.
By then we were permanent residents.
My mother had married, he was freed from prison,
and then imprisoned immediately in Florence
and he was deported.
Not only do they kick you out of your own home,
but then you go back to the country that they say
that you belong to and that country also doesn't want you.
So, five months ago he was shot and killed.
He was executed.
In an alleyway, basically.
The terror of that entire experience
will never be lost on me.
(somber music)
I don't think I was gonna do the work anymore, to be honest.
It's really hard work, and you hardly ever win.
And while you're fighting, people are dying.
I just never thought my own brother would
be one of those statistics.
(somber music)
I hadn't felt anything other than deep grief
and sadness in a really long time.
I go sky diving and I feel nothing
until I'm up in the airplane right next to the door,
and then I jump and halfway through
I finally feel something.
(somber music)
I was terrified, but also felt like I was alive
and well for the first time.
Having seen how ugly and tragic death can be,
I have a deep, deep respect for life,
one that I didn't have before.
- [Crowd] Power.
- [Man] We want. - [Crowd] Justice.
- [Man] Bring back, - [Crowd] Power.
- [Man] We want. - [Crowd] Justice.
- Life is as beautiful as it is cruel.
(speaking in Spanish)
And my work will revolve around trying
to tear down the systems which contributed
to my brother's death, and there were many.
There were a lot.
- [Crowd] Ain't no power like the power of the people
'cause the power of the people don't stop!
Ain't no power like the power of the people
'cause the power of the people don't stop!