Organizing a Rally/protest against I-485 Backlog in the City of San Francisco

All,
I have modified the first post in this thread to reflect a change in the Date/Time & Location to TBD.
If having the Rally at Laguna will give us more coverage then lets shift gears and tally the votes and see how many people will attend....

We need your vote & Particpation for a Rally in Laguna
 
How about Collecting Signatures in San Francisco downtown instead of a Ralley/Protest in front of the USCIS office ?

1) hussein and kadamtal have been driving this event eagerly.
This kind of commitment is more important than the result of the event especially in early stage like our activities.
We should respect their initiative first.

2) Even though 20 people have signed up, I wonder how many people will actually come there on that day.
In my experience, even for Congressman's town hall meeting, only about 50-70% have actually come to the meeting.
It seems difficult to gather enough people for a Ralley/Protest, but it would be enough for Collecting Signatures in the downtown.

3) Honestly speaking, I cannot expect so many participants from Southern California.
When I attended Ed Royce town hall meeting in Orange County in December 2003, only 2 joined.
For Linda Sanchez Immigration Forum, nobody attended.
Also, I don't think so many people will drive from Northern California to Laguna Niguel only for a Rally/Protest.

4) Some people think a Ralley/Protest too riskly,
but Collecting Signatures should have no risk.

5) Signatures collected are the real result of our activities.
We can use it for Litigation or Campaigns to Congress.

6) Our preparation required due to change from a Rally/Protest to Collecting Signatures might be small.

6) If we succeed in San Francisco, we can expand it in other big cities nation wide.

7) We can do that in weekend.

What do you think about my proposal ?
 
Hi Kashmir,

Who should we collect the signatures from? General public? Can you eloborate on this idea of yours?

Maybe we should open a lemonade stand for free and take signatures of people. (1 glass of lemonade=1 signature) how about that :)
 
Originally posted by kadamtal
Also, since you guys are in core team, can you find out from Rajiv what his opinion about this whole event. We can take his viewpoint also before we attempt this feat.
And most importantly, let us put it for poll not get their feedback if we need to do this or not but to see if they would attend if it is in Laguna.
Lets give it more thought....
Click to expand...
I did speak to him about it last time and he was of the opinion that there shouldn't be anything wrong. There is a core team conference call tomorrow, and I will speak to him again.

The advise to make this event more low key comes from someone with a lot more political acumen than any of us, (as I explained in my pm), and hence I am more inclined to take it seriously.

Though I have to agree with Kashmir on the fact that not many people show up inspite promising to do so thanks to last minutes scheduling glitches.

I don't mind meeting up for a signature campaign. As well as a strategising session as to what we should do in the future. This would also be a good place to recruit more people in the various fax/email campaigns we run.

But a poll is a terrific idea to see how many people are very committed about this. wac-02-068 will you be posting the poll?
 
What is all this stuff going on about Personal Messages? I thought this was a public forum...Why people are touting on their "positions" and ""core team""?

Can we have open communication?

I like the signature idea...CA is used to be asked for signature and I think lot of people would sign it too, if you try to make it a human rights issue.

I still think a Rally requires way too much commitment and I suspect the attendance will be < 5.
 
pm's are sent to convery personal thoughts to the people concerned. Offcourse this is a public forum and should be treated as such, but it does allow you to communicate privately otherwise we wouldn't have the pm option.

As far as positions/core team is concerned, going by your number of posts, I would imagine you to be a new comer and hence the following explanation, otherwise I would ask you to RTFM.

The core team was set up about 4-6 months ago, which consists of the most active members on the forum, who share a common cause to reduce backlogs. We try to co-ordinate strategy on a national level and make sure we are all on the same page. We were supported by Rajiv Khanna (the person who owns this site), in our activites and he acts as our unofficial advisor in various campaigns that we run, on the basis of him being an attorney and the vast experience he has in this field. The core team also acts as a point of contact between the community and Rajiv, we do bring up issues that require his input and draw his attention to cases where his intervention is required.

To facilitate good communication between the 15 odd members of the core-team, we devote a part of our weekends in conference calls (that Rajiv attends), and discuss issues at hand. We also do other work like making appointments with various congressmen/faxing letters/spreading awareness of the cause and generally keeping track of the INS and its doings.

There is total open communication, as you will see from various threads in other forums on this board. It is not possible to reproduce the thread in every forum due to software limitations. You are welcome to see how the core team thinks, the minutes of our meetings, etc. on those threads.

And you are welcome to join the core team if you have the enthusiasm and drive to do so.
 
I agree with Kashmir that we should not waste the initiatives taken for this protest.

But before we embark on any idea I think we should get together for a strategic session and plan any idea we come up with in detail.

In fact we should have such sessions regularly. It will provide a forum to voice objections and we may be able to help in giving them a more creative direction instead of spat!

Also, this will help us in getting to know each other and bring in more people who are willing to actively participate in the campaigns.

It will also bring more transparency (the objection of thewiseone is valid!) and will help gauge the commitment of people.

If we agree, lets decide on time and place and get on with it!
 
Originally posted by 140_takes_4ever
But a poll is a terrific idea to see how many people are very committed about this. wac-02-068 will you be posting the poll?
Click to expand...

140_takes_4ever ,

Yes, I can post the poll. But let's wait for a bit, since more opinions/options may be coming in.
 
Banner Idea

The banner should be catchy and not have things like WAC#. No one outside of the GC process knows about WACs.

How about something like this..

Waiting time: 4 Years and counting
Taxes Paid: $100,000 (or whatever approximation) and counting
Representation: NONE

G'Luck with the protest. I'll be out of the country in April.

- sf
 
Originally posted by kadamtal
Hi Kashmir,
Who should we collect the signatures from? General public? Can you eloborate on this idea of yours?
Maybe we should open a lemonade stand for free and take signatures of people. (1 glass of lemonade=1 signature) how about that :)
Click to expand...
Hi, kadamtal,
> Who should we collect the signatures from? General public?
Yes. I believe we can collect signatures from general public.
At least, we should try it once.
Also, we can ask signature from people on the line of USCIS.

Most of community members are afraid even just to send e-mail to Don Neufeld, and only 20-40 people have participated in campaigns.
I don't think these people who don't participate in campaigns would come to San Francisco for a Ralley/Protest.
Most of I-485 applicants must be out of this country on that day of the Rally/Protest.
 
Now, why didn't I think of that. Out of country, what an excuse. No questions will be asked.

I am not sure how many of the people who are standing in line would sign. With the fear that, they might NOT get what they came for if they sign and enter the Local INS office. You might be surprised, they might just say that they got their GC's afterall and no need of signing :)

Whatever might be the excuse, we can take 2-3 major initiatives of ours and come up with a well drafted letter and take signatures on it. Those we can either mail or meet with congress persons and give them by hand.

in that case, we should soon discuss this out and then Hussein can update the main post to bring this event back up to life.
 
Originally posted by kashmir
Most of I-485 applicants must be out of this country on that day of the Rally/Protest.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, I am going to be out of the country for the next three weeks. But that has nothing to do with not wanting to sign or protest against INS. It is a long planned vacation, and there is no way in hell, that I am going to change my plans for anything short of a seriously major reason.

Offcourse my support for the communities actions is unshaken. I will be only too glad to join voices with the community as soon as I am back.
 
Hi, hussein and kadamtal,
I apologize that I could not fully support to make it happen
though I believe it's a good initiative.
-kashmir
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top