The Green Party of Philadelphia membership meeting on March 27 established a Migration is a Human Right Working Group. This new collective of Green Party volunteers will change the narrative around immigration in Philadelphia.

Green Party of Philadelphia
www.gpop.org

FOR RELEASE
Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Media Contact
Chris Robinson [email protected]

Evan Lyons, a Green Party member from Manayunk, said, “The formation of the Green Party of Philadelphia's Migration Working Group comes at a time of profound crisis. The Trump administration, using tools built by successive Republican and Democrat administrations, is deliberately pursuing a politics of cruelty to support his racist and undemocratic goals. We have seen in the past month the lengths that ICE has used to surveil and abduct students guilty only of exercising their first amendment rights. We have seen the consistent violation of due process rights of detainees. Our new Working Group will be able to organize with the well-established network of community organizations that protect immigrant rights and mobilize the working class around these very critical issues.”

The current national U.S. policy calls for deportation of millions of residents who have not earned formal citizenship. This has horrified Green Party members. Jon Lessner, a Green from Roxborough said, “We knew it was coming but not like this. It is dictatorial to take away people's visas and green cards because of their personal views on the modern times, live-streamed holocaust funded with our tax dollars. The deportations have been perpetrated by a president who claimed to be targeting violent criminals, which we knew was a lie. It is now obvious that he is targeting people who oppose his views and criminalizing being undocumented, when in fact it's only a civil offense.”

Lessner continued, “We need immigrants in this country to keep things running and have a strong economy. They contribute as much as anyone else, if not more. As President John F. Kennedy wrote in his last book, ‘Every aspect of the American economy has profited from the contributions of immigrants.’”

Chris Robinson, a Green Party member from Germantown, explained, “The Green Party holds that people should be able to choose the country in which they live and work or study. We will organize to make Philadelphia a friendly place for migrants to call their home. It is not enough for us to be silent when faced with hatred of immigrants. The Green Party will actively oppose anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. Green Party members will speak out, demonstrate and endorse political candidates who support immigrants.”

For information about the next meeting of the Green Party Migration is a Human Right Working Group please contact Beverly Rolfsmeyer, Green Party City Committee at [email protected]. The Green Party of Philadelphia (GPOP, www.gpop.org) is an independent political party which stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPOP candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s Four Pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity.