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Abolishing ICE Isn’t Radical — It’s Rational

July 6, 2018 By Fizz Perkal, Otherwords.org , , ,
As someone who was born and raised in the border state of New Mexico, I’m very familiar with political speak about immigrants and the border, especially when it comes to talking about safety. After 9/11, concerns about safety led to the passing of the Homeland Security Act, which created a new cabinet department as well as a new law enforcement agency: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. ICE was given a never-before-seen level of criminal and civil authority — in theory, to keep Americans safe. It’s now the largest investigative branch of the Homeland Security department. Unlike other law enforcement agencies like the FBI or DEA, ICE doesn’t answer to the Department of Justice, which for decades has at least paid lip service to due process. Far from being a law enforcement agency, ICE has become the closest thing we have to a lawless organization.

Hundreds Call For ICE To Be Abolished And Protest Operation Streamline

July 5, 2018 Marielena Castellanos, Laprensa-sandiego.org , , , ,
Hundreds gathered in Chicano Park this week for a rally and march through downtown San Diego to call for an end to family separations, the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to cancel the implementation of Operation Streamline. The federal program being expanded along California’s border, Operation Streamline, which creates fast tracked mass prosecutions of people caught crossing the United States-Mexico border without documentation, is expected to begin this month in California. Protesters included San Diego residents and hundreds of others who traveled from all across California and around the country. The march and rally were organized by Mijente and a number of interfaith and civil rights organizations. Mijente is a national Latinx organization mobilizing against immigration enforcement and criminalization of migrants.

Grassroots Activists: “Abolish ICE” Means Disband, Not Reform The Agency

July 4, 2018 By Mike Ludwig, Truthout.org , ,
After weeks of controversy over the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant and migrant families, the call to “abolish” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is generating plenty of headlines, but it did not go mainstream overnight. Over the weekend, “Abolish ICE” was heard in protest chants and scrawled on banners across the country as thousands of people took to the streets to rally against the separation and incarceration of migrant families. Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who rocketed into the spotlight after beating an establishment Democrat in a New York City congressional primary, famously ran on a platform that included abolishing ICE. Democratic stars like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand are embracing the idea, at least in name, and progressives in the House are reportedly crafting legislation that would end ICE’s role in immigration enforcement after a commission identifies an “alternative.”

From Occupation To Community: The Lessons From OccupyICE Portland

July 4, 2018 Rob Reimetz, Counterpunch.org , , , ,
I remember visiting the the OccupyICEPDX encampment during its first week in Portland, Oregon in which activists successfully shut down the local I.C.E. Facility. I was able to have conversations with several activists and assist in carrying heavy items around the camp. The activists told me what made this occupation so successful was once they decided to commit to setting up an encampment around the facility their numbers grew quickly. These rise in numbers is what has helped sustain the occupation. This first visit to me felt like an occupation. Building was still being done, many items were still needed for the camp, and teams in the camp were recently established. But something else was coinciding with this occupation. Something that we can all learn from, it was not until my visit to the camp on June 30th for the nightly vigil that I realized what these lessons were.

Federal Agents Interrupt CBS Interview With Former ICE Spokesperson

June 30, 2018 By Jake Johnson, Commondreams.org , ,
"This is why people won't come out and speak against the government," said James Schwab, a former ICE spokesman who quit after refusing to spread the Trump administration's lies. In a nationally televised incident that "should disturb every single person living in the United States," agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General's Office on Wednesday interrupted an interview with former ICE spokesperson James Schwab, who resigned from his position in March after he was asked to perpetuate lies on behalf of the Trump administration. "This is intimidation," Schwab told CBS reporter Jamie Yuccas after the agents left his doorstep. "And this is why people won't come out and speak against the government."

Two Boys Sue The U.S. Government For Separating Them From Their Fathers

June 27, 2018 Ryan Devereaux, Theintercept.com , , , , ,
INSIDE THE HEARTLAND International Children’s Rescue Center in Chicago, Illinois, two young boys sit and wait. One is 15 years old. The other is 9. Their fathers are more than a thousand miles away, at two for-profit detention centers on the border. The two families came from Brazil, seeking asylum in the U.S. Instead, they were locked up. It’s been nearly a month since the four were separated. Only one of the boys has been able to speak to his father and even then, the conversation was brief. On Wednesday, as President Donald Trump prepared to sign an executive order with potentially sweeping implications for immigrant detention, the boys became the latest plaintiffs to challenge the administration’s family separation practices. Their complaints, filed in Chicago, appeal to the same critical federal consent decree, known as the Flores settlement, that the president is now seeking to circumvent.

ICE Temporarily Shutters Portland Facility Due To ‘Occupy’ Protest

June 21, 2018 By Dirk VanderHart, Huffingtonpost.com.mx , , , ,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Portland office temporarily shut its doors due to ongoing protests against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy which leads to children being separated from their parents. “ICE operations at this location have been temporarily halted due to security concerns,” an ICE spokesman said Wednesday in a statement reported by Oregon Public Radio. “Normal operations will resume once security concerns have been addressed.” Dozens of protesters have been gathered outside the office since Sunday, holding up signs and banners (some comparing the agency to the Gestapo) and setting up tents in light of the rollout of the new policy, which has meant that every person crossing the border at an unofficial point of entry gets detained. So far, more than 2,300 children have been split up from their parents.

Microsoft Workers Pressure Bosses To Cancel ICE Contract

June 21, 2018 Bryan Menegus and Kate Conger, Gizmodo.com , , ,
Microsoft employees are putting pressure on their management to cancel a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of a backlash against the agency’s policy of separating children from their families at the U.S. border. In an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent today, employees demanded that the company cancel its $19.4 million contract with ICE and instate a policy against working with clients who violate international human rights law. The text of the employee letter was first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Gizmodo. “We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand, and put children and families above profits,” the letter, signed by Microsoft employees, states. “We request that Microsoft cancel its contracts with ICE, and with other clients who directly enable ICE.

#FamiliesBelongTogether Rallies Around The Country

June 15, 2018 Zach D. Roberts, Nation of Change. , ,
As more terrible news continues to pour out our immigration centers, rallies nationwide have popped up to call out local officials and government policies that separate children at the border. In downtown Syracuse, New York, not usually a hotbed of activism in my experience, roughly seventy people joined the rally that began in front of Republican Congressman John Katko’s office. Outside the Congressman’s offices activists handed out yellow wristbands that were meant to symbolize the barcoded wristbands that immigrant children are forced to wear to receive food and services.

Activists Plan Nationwide Protest Over Immigration Policies

June 14, 2018 Emily Wells, TruthDig. , , ,
In response to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which include separating parents and children attempting to illegally cross the border, Families Belong Together is organizing a nationwide series of marches demanding reform. The marches are set for Thursday. Organizers of the group wrote in a press release: [I]t is unconscionable that the US government is actively tearing apart immigrant families. They are victims of violence, hunger, and poverty and our government’s actions re-violate them, causing untold damage. Children as young as 18 months are torn from their mothers’ arms by our own government.

Activists Calling For The Abolition Of ICE Blocking Seattle Streets Outside Of Homeland Security Building

June 6, 2018 NWDC Resistance, Thenorthstar.info , , , , , , ,
Seattle, WA – Early yesterday morning, activists with Northwest Detention Center Resistance and Mijente locked down outside of 1000 2nd Avenue in downtown Seattle, Washington, calling attention to the building’s role as Washington State’s deportation epicenter. The building, owned by billionaire developer Martin Selig, houses regional offices for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and Office of Chief Counsel, regional offices for Customs and Border Protection, and the Department of Justice-controlled Seattle Immigration Court. The lockdown is part of the launch of the “Chinga La Migra” organizing tour to tell the story of what the deportation crisis under President Trump looks like in real time, and amplify the efforts and stories of resistance.

To Create True Sanctuary Cities, We Must End Racist Policing

June 6, 2018 By Reyna Wences and Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz, Truthout.org , , , , , ,
Cities across the US have enacted sanctuary measures to resist the Trump administration’s escalation of anti-immigrant policing, but most municipal sanctuary measures have a central weakness: They only seek to protect immigrants deemed as “law-abiding,” leaving those already ensnared in a racist system of criminalization and policing unprotected. Sanctuary ordinances, such as the ones adopted by Chicago in 2012 and by the state of Illinois in 2017, seek to inhibit cooperation between local policing agencies and federal immigration authorities by prohibiting local police departments from using agency resources to hold immigrants for federal agents. But as with most sanctuary legislation, these bills distinguish otherwise “law-abiding” undocumented immigrants from “criminal aliens,” who are left unprotected by sanctuary measures and rendered highly vulnerable to detention and deportation.

In Response To ICE Raids And Family Separation, Immigrant Communities Are Fighting Back

May 31, 2018 Tanner Howard, Inthesetimes.com , , ,
Since May 19, a hotline dedicated to assisting families threatened by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been ringing nonstop. That same day is when ICE agents across the Chicagoland area began a widespread sweep, including at a worksite near a Home Depot, where laborers go to find work. According to immigrants’ rights organizers, at least 80 people have been detained since the sweep began, and likely many more. On Thursday, a group of around 75 protesters gathered on Chicago’s Southwest side at the intersection of 45th St. and Western Ave., across the street from the worksite. Organizers, as well as several workers who were at the job site when ICE arrived last weekend, spoke to the gathered crowd. With ICE threatening their livelihoods and their communities, those who spoke gave urgency to the ongoing fight to end police intimidation and for immigrants to earn a living and to live without fear.

Mass ICE Raids Leave A Trail Of Misery And Broken Communities

May 14, 2018 Alice Speri, Theintercept.com , , ,
A MONTH AFTER dozens of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded a meatpacking plant in Morristown, Tennessee, and detained 97 men and women who worked there, the tight-knit rural community is still reeling, but the initial shock has seeped into a quiet pain, as families adjust to lives without work and their loved ones. As those shipped to immigration detention facilities across the country started appearing before judges for bond hearings this month, some families were reunited, though still facing deportation proceedings, while others braced for long separations. As of Thursday, 20 of those arrested on April 5 were released — but many more remained in detention. “Tragedy continues to unfold,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. “Some families are getting really terrible news.”

Survivor-Centered Tribunals Find ICE Guilty Of Abuses, Push For Agency’s Abolition

May 10, 2018 By Candice Bernd, Truthout.org ,
On a sunny Saturday afternoon outside the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention jail in Taylor, Texas, Laura Monterrosa, dressed in a judicial robe, turned toward an individual standing in for the jail's "defense," representing officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the private prison corporation CoreCivic and Williamson County. "What is your defense to the charge of sexual abuse that I experienced inside the detention center?" she asked him in Spanish as an advocate translated for the "court's" audience. The defense's answer was the sort of typical PR statement you might expect: "Part of treating our inmates and detainees with respect is giving them a safe place to live. We believe in safeguarding their rights, including protecting them from personal abuse, injury and harassment."
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