Carolina Peace Center

12/03/2025

Statement of Condemnation & Solidarity
Somali community - Urgent Call to Action

The recent remarks by Donald Trump calling Somali immigrants “garbage” and urging them to “go back home” are disgusting, cowardly, and morally reprehensible.

Such blatant xenophobia, anti-Muslim hate, racism, and bigotry have no place in United States, a nation built on immigrants, diversity, and the fundamental dignity of every human being.

The Somali community like every immigrant and refugee community in this country deserves full respect, protection, and recognition. They are not only human beings with rights, dreams, and dignity, but many have contributed significantly to American society: in business, public service, culture, and community life.

We emphatically condemn this hateful rhetoric, and we reject the idea that any group of people can be dismissed as “garbage.”

We stand in solidarity with Somali Americans and Somali immigrants and with all immigrant communities and affirm that they belong here. Their lives, safety, and dignity matter.

Urgent Call to Action

• Contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives immediately. Demand that they issue official statements condemning this hateful rhetoric. Remind them that immigrant communities including Somalis deserve protection, dignity, and equal respect under the law.
• If possible: request meetings, town-halls, or virtual calls to discuss what Congress will do to protect immigrant communities and prevent further hate and discrimination.
• Amplify Somali voices: share their stories, highlight their contributions, humanize their lives. Fuel empathy, not hate.
• Support local and national organizations working for immigrant rights, civil rights, refugee protection, donate, volunteer, speak out.
• Hold the media and elected leaders accountable: we cannot normalize dehumanizing language or let it become “politically acceptable.”

Now is a moment for courage, unity, and moral clarity. Speak out. Write. Mobilize. Protect.

10/29/2025

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued an interim final rule ending the practice of automatically extending employment authorization documents (EADs) for non-citizens (aliens) who submit renewal applications in certain employment categories. This change reflects DHS’s stated goal of strengthening the screening and vetting process before extending employment authorization validity.

Beginning October 30, 2025, non-citizens (aliens) who apply to renew their EAD will no longer receive an automatic extension. Limited exceptions will remain, such as those required by law or outlined in Federal Register notices related to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) documentation. By ending automatic EAD extensions, DHS intends to conduct more frequent reviews of non-citizens (aliens) seeking authorization to work in the United States. These additional background checks, according to DHS, are designed to deter fraud and identify individuals who may pose security concerns, allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to take appropriate action, including potential removal proceedings.

“USCIS is reaffirming its commitment to thorough screening and vetting,” said USCIS Director Joseph Edlow. “We are reversing policies from the previous administration that placed convenience for non-citizens (aliens) above the safety and security of Americans. This is a commonsense approach to ensure that each renewal undergoes proper review before authorization is extended. Working in the United States is a privilege, not a right.”

USCIS advises non-citizens (aliens) to file their EAD renewal applications well in advance—up to 180 days before the document’s expiration—to avoid potential lapses in work authorization. The longer an individual waits to file, the greater the risk of a temporary interruption in employment eligibility.

This interim final rule does not affect any EADs that were automatically extended prior to October 30, 2025.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced an interim final rule ending the practice of automatically extending employment authorization documents for aliens filing renewal applications in certain employment authorization categories.

10/06/2025

Palestine’s Gaza was never just rubble.

It was home to poets and fishermen, markets alive with colour and families breaking bread by the sea. Since October 2023, Israel’s genocide has torn it apart, silenced its voices and turned a land of life into a cemetery of dreams.

09/19/2025

https://www.watermelonpictures.com/films/sudan-remember-us?fbclid=IwdGRleAM5fdtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkAiH2Bm1PsADUAIa7OFxJmFXkMoohytGbO0hdlzzuKDc67fJAUBZZvx2HIm_aem_T5gjSY4t8VkGVAfZWk-shQ

09/14/2025

“Cho Young-hee, a 44-year-old South Korean engineer, said his first reaction was confusion when U.S. immigration authorities burst into a Hyundai Motor construction site in Georgia where he was working.

He couldn’t tell what the men with guns and armored vehicles were doing there, and no English-to-Korean translators were to be found. Maybe it was an inspection of some kind, he supposed.

“We thought we’d just be taken somewhere for further questions, but they put on handcuffs and chained our bodies,” Cho recalled. “That’s when we realized, we’re not simply being moved.”

At the detention center, Cho was assigned a prison uniform. He shared a room with one other person where they ate, slept and relieved themselves. He got little information about why he was behind bars, and even Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities seemed unsure of what was going on. “It felt like our basic human rights weren’t being guaranteed,” he said.

U.S. authorities have said that those arrested in the raid either crossed the border illegally, entered through a visa-waiver program that prohibited them from working, or overstayed their visas. They haven’t said which applies to the South Koreans.

After a few days, the atmosphere changed.

“Their initial attitude was very aggressive,” said Cho, but “as time went on, it seemed like they realized we hadn’t committed any major illegal acts.” Immigration agents “gradually seemed to think, ‘Something’s not right here, we shouldn’t be talking to them like this,’” he said.”

Read more: 🔗 https://on.wsj.com/4pmAKE6

08/14/2025

The Department of Homeland Security is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to question anyone who speaks Spanish “to support reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally.”

This isn’t “common sense,” it’s blatant racism.

The Department of Homeland Security is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to question anyone who speaks Spanish “to support reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally.”

07/26/2025

Short coverage by WGME CBS 13 News, Portland on a rally and vigil for Gaza, Palestine few days ago.

"Things have gotten much worse now, and it’s continued to get worse and worse every day,” protester Faisal Khan said. “Now this is something that is unprecedented in our modern history. We have seen a live, televised genocide on a daily basis, so things are getting worse, although there is more and more people who are speaking out here but not enough."

WGME CBS 13 provides news, sports, weather and local event coverage in the Portland, Maine area including Lewiston, Augusta, Brunswick, Westbrook, Biddeford, S**o, Sanford, South Portland, Kennebunk, Bangor, Freeport, Buxton, Windham, Auburn, Waterville, Scarborough, Gorham, Yarmouth, Standish, Falm...

07/26/2025

“Amid ongoing Israeli attacks and a tightening blockade restricting food and medicine, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis continues to worsen, claiming lives every day.

In the past 24 hours, a one-week-old infant, Hud Arafat, and six-month-old Zeyneb Abu Halib died from severe malnutrition and lack of baby formula.

Health authorities in Gaza reported 122 deaths so far due to starvation and malnutrition, including 83 children, amid the near-total collapse of the medical system and a critical shortage of basic food supplies.

More than 100,000 children in Gaza, including 40,000 infants under the age of one, are facing imminent death due to the complete lack of baby formula and nutritional supplements, the Government Media Office in Gaza warned on July 26.”

07/26/2025

“the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced on its page that aid distribution would today be exclusively for women. The GHF’s call instructed women in Gaza to head to these points at 9:00 a.m.

“Our local team will guide women to a designated area where each will receive a box,” the GHF said in its announcement in Arabic, accompanied by what appears to be an AI-generated photo of smiling male GHF workers holding boxes and welcoming a group of women approaching them. “Men are requested to avoid the site during this distribution,” the statement added.

But when the women arrived, GHF personnel attacked them with pepper-spray and batons, while Israeli military vehicles opened fire with bullets over their heads, eyewitnesses said in testimonies obtained by Mondoweiss. One woman who was at the site says she witnessed a GHF worker beating a pregnant woman on her stomach. Other eyewitnesses reported to local journalists that two women were shot dead by the Israeli army and several others were injured.”

The Israeli-backed and U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that its distribution on Thursday would only be for Palestinian women. Eyewitnesses say that GHF staff pepper-sprayed them and beat them with batons, while two women were killed.

07/23/2025

EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION
Gaza Is Being Starved—Deliberately.

More than 100 international aid organizations, including Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam, are sounding the alarm:

“Mass starvation is spreading across Gaza.”

At a hospital in Gaza City, five children under five have died from malnutrition in recent days. Others are clinging to life. The hospital has run out of basic nutritional supplements. The main WHO warehouse and UNRWA aid facilities were bombed by Israeli forces—three times in one day.

This is not a natural disaster. It is an Israel made starvation. It is deliberate. And it is being carried out with U.S. weapons, U.S. funding, and U.S. diplomatic cover.

Meanwhile, the media floods your screen with everything but this: Celebrity gossip. Manufactured political drama. Distractions.

That’s not a coincidence. Distraction is the strategy. While you scroll, Gaza starves.
Right now, thousands of aid trucks sit at the border—filled with food, water, and medicine.
Ready to move. But Israel is blocking them. And the U.S. is letting it happen.

You can change that. You can act. Call your members of Congress. Call and write to local media. Demand an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian aid. Share this. Force the truth into the headlines.

Script:
(Email and call)

Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent from [Your City/State]. I’m calling because I am deeply alarmed by the catastrophic and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are now dying from deliberate starvation. I am urging the Senator/Congressmember to publicly call for an immediate and total ceasefire, to demand the lifting of the siege, and to support the full and unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid. The situation is urgent and beyond words—this is a preventable atrocity happening in real time.

Professor Nick Maynard, a British consultant surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals, recently returned to volunteer at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza with Medical Aid for Palestinians. He wrote: “I’ve just finished operating on another severely malnourished teenager. A seven-month-old baby lies in our ICU, so tiny and malnourished I initially mistook her for a newborn. She is literally wasting away before our eyes, and we are powerless to save her. We are witnessing deliberate starvation in Gaza right now. This is deliberate. This is preventable. And this must stop now.” This is a medical professional on the ground—not a politician or activist—confirming what many international observers have warned for months. I’m witnessing the deliberate starvation of Gaza’s children – why is the world letting it happen? | Nick Maynard | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/22/gaza-israel-deliberate-starvation-ceasefire-aid)

We can’t bring back those who have died.
But we can fight like hell for those still breathing.
Don’t let this become just another forgotten tragedy.

Raise your voice. Make the call. Break the silence.

07/23/2025

URGENT CALL TO ACTION

This is a call to every person who believes in human decency: the siege on Gaza must be lifted. There must be an immediate and total ceasefire. I don’t care what party you belong to—Democrat, Republican, independent, or none at all. This is about being human.

Script:
(Email and call)

Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent from [Your City/State]. I’m calling because I am deeply alarmed by the catastrophic and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are now dying from deliberate starvation. I am urging the Senator/Congressmember to publicly call for an immediate and total ceasefire, to demand the lifting of the siege, and to support the full and unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid. The situation is urgent and beyond words—this is a preventable atrocity happening in real time.

Professor Nick Maynard, a British consultant surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals, recently returned to volunteer at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza with Medical Aid for Palestinians. He wrote: “I’ve just finished operating on another severely malnourished teenager. A seven-month-old baby lies in our ICU, so tiny and malnourished I initially mistook her for a newborn. She is literally wasting away before our eyes, and we are powerless to save her. We are witnessing deliberate starvation in Gaza right now. This is deliberate. This is preventable. And this must stop now.” This is a medical professional on the ground—not a politician or activist—confirming what many international observers have warned for months.

I’m witnessing the deliberate starvation of Gaza’s children – why is the world letting it happen? | Nick Maynard | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/22/gaza-israel-deliberate-starvation-ceasefire-aid

Please, I ask you to act with urgency and moral clarity. This is not about politics—it’s about humanity. I urge you to stand on the right side of history and use your voice and power to call for a complete ceasefire, an end to the blockade, and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The U.S. and Europe must stop enabling Israel to commit this atrocity through weapons, funding, and diplomatic cover. Anything less is complicity. Thank you for your time, and I hope to see immediate leadership from your office.

Get up. Stand up. Speak out.

(These are not images from a history book. These are Palestinian children—right now—in Gaza, being starved to death in plain view of the world. Their fragile, skeletal bodies are the direct result of Israel’s deliberate blockade, with full diplomatic, military, and material support from the United States, Europe, and others. This is not a humanitarian crisis; this is a man-made, calculated genocide. To stay silent in the face of this is to be complicit. I implore you: do not look away. Do not be silent. Speak out and act—now.)

07/23/2025