Community Members rallied across PA to stand up for Immigrant and Workers’ Rights, and more than 160 businesses closed in solidarity

Wednesday, May 1, 2019 – Marches and Rallies marked International Workers Day in Reading, Allentown, and Philadelphia. More than 160 businesses in those three cities closed in solidarity, and encouraged their employees and patrons to join the MayDay mobilizations. In Philadelphia specifically, Make the Road PA announced their new campaign for #Justice4Denis, a Philadelphian who was wrongly accused of a crime and deported to Peru more than 20 years ago*.

Members of Make the Road Pennsylvania, Indivisible Berks, Dominican Association, We the People PA, March on Harrisburg, Women’s Medical Fund, Shut Down Berks Coalition, One Pennsylvania, Juntos, Lehigh Valley DSA, Power Lehigh Valley. Large and small business owners who closed their businesses in solidarity, employees, and community members.

 

Around the world, International Workers Day is celebrated by working communities, and for many years in this country, MayDay has also become a day to celebrate and stand up for immigrant rights. Here in Pennsylvania, workers joined together to demand a raise in the state minimum wage and to stand in solidarity for immigrant rights and workers rights. In Reading, Allentown and Philadelphia, more than 160 businesses large and small agreed to close their doors in solidarity and encouraged their employees and patrons to join the rally demanding workers rights.

 

Members of Make the Road PA and other community organizations took the streets this International Workers Day in solidarity with workers and immigrants around the country and around the world who are striving for a world of justice and dignity for all communities.

*Justice For Denis

In 1996, Denis Calderon and his cousin Julio Maldonado, two longtime permanent residents from Peru, were victims of a racist attack by a large group of intoxicated young men in Northeast Philadelphia. But instead of arresting the attackers, police arrested Denis and Julio after one of the men in the crowd –Christian Saladino– collapsed and was hospitalized. Denis and Julio were charged with assault, convicted, and later deported. Medical evidence brought forth in a later hearing showed that Denis and Julio did not harm Saladino. But the evidence came too late to change the outcome.

Now Denis’s adult daughter, a nurse in the Air Force, has filed a family green card petition for him which has already been approved. However, the 22-year-old criminal conviction is preventing Denis from rejoining his family in the U.S.

The Calderon family has worked to find justice for Denis for more than 20 years. They have a community now that will stand with them to ask that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner help get justice for Denis so he can rejoin his family in the U.S.

Make the Road PA and Free Migration Project are working to bring this family the justice they deserve.

Information provided to TVL by:
Ashleigh Strange
https://www.maketheroadpa.org/