ICE

ICE Temporarily Shutters Portland Facility Due To ‘Occupy’ Protest

June 21, 2018 By Dirk VanderHart, Huffingtonpost.com.mx Resist! ICE, Immigration, Portland, Protests, Undocumented

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 Resist! Class Struggle, ICE, Immigration, Microsoft

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. Resist! Detention Centers, ICE, Immigration

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. Resist! Families, ICE, Immigration, Trump

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 Resist! Activism, Detention Centers, Homeland Security, ICE, Immigration, Seattle, Undocumented, Washington

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 Create! Detention Centers, ICE, Immigration, Police, Racial Profiling, Racism, Undocumented

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 Organize! Deportation, Detention Centers, ICE, Immigration

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 Educate! Deportations, ICE, Immigration, Undocumented

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 Resist! ICE, Immigration

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."

Oakland Passes “Strongest” Surveillance Oversight Law In US

May 4, 2018 Cyrus Farivar, Arstechnica.com Create! Deportations, ICE, Legislation, Oakland, Surveillance

OAKLAND, Calif.—Late Tuesday evening, the Oakland City Council formally approved a new city ordinance that imposes community control over the use of surveillance technology in the city. Oakland is now one of a number of California cities, including Berkeley and Davis, that mandates a formal annual report that details "how the surveillance technology was used," among other requirements. In the wake of Oakland’s 2013 efforts to approve federal grant money to construct a "Domain Awareness Center," the city has now also created a "Privacy Advisory Commission," or PAC. This body, composed of volunteer commissioners from each city council district, acts as a privacy check on the city when any municipal entity (typically the police department) wants to acquire a technology that may impinge on individual privacy.

#ICEOnTrial: Advocates Rally To Hold Federal Agency Accountable For Systemic Abuses

April 25, 2018 Tina Vasquez, Rewire.news Resist! ICE, Immigration, Undocumented

As the #AbolishICE movement gains steam, immigrant rights organizations are coordinating a series of “people’s tribunals” to hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accountable for, advocates say, its “culture of secrecy and systemic abuse.” Dubbed #ICEOnTrial, the tribunals are being spearheaded by the Detention Watch Network, a national coalition of organizations working to expose the injustices of the immigration detention and deportation systems. The network isn’t mincing words about why it’s protesting ICE. “Under an explicitly anti-immigrant and racist Trump administration, ICE is emboldened to be less transparent, unaccountable and act with increased impunity,” the network explains on its website.

Woman Who Alleged Assault By Guard Finally Released From Detention

March 21, 2018 By Tina Vasquez, Rewire.news Resist! Abuse, ICE, Immigration, Sexual Assault, Undocumented

A Salvadoran woman who came forward four months ago with allegations of sexual assault by a guard has been released from the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas, where her abuser remained employed for the bulk of her detainment. Laura Monterrosa was released from detention Friday evening after a months-long campaign by the advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership, culminating with a letter to the Department of Homeland Security signed by more than 45 Congressional representatives calling for an investigation into sexual abuse allegations at Texas detention centers. The members of Congress demanded an expedited audit to assess Hutto’s compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Getting released from detention has been a long road for Monterrosa, who Grassroots Leadership says is “adjusting to her new environment and recovering from the trauma she has experienced.”

ICE Spokesman Resigns After Refusing To Spread “Misleading Facts” That Labeled Undocumented Immigrants As “Dangerous Criminals”

March 17, 2018 Rachel Janik, Splcenter.org Educate! ICE, Immigration, Repression, Undocumented

James Schwab, formerly the spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s San Francisco Division, resigned after objecting to statements from ICE and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he says are false. Schwab told CNN he shared his concerns about the inaccuracies with ICE leadership, and was told to “deflect to previous statements.” After the agency showed no interest in correcting the misinformation, which included blanket demonization of undocumented immigrants as “public safety threats,” Schwab stepped down. On Monday, he explained his decision to CNN: "I just couldn't bear the burden — continuing on as a representative of the agency and charged with upholding integrity, knowing that information was false." The falsehoods he cited came from Sessions and ICE Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan.

Protesters Descend On ICE San Francisco Headquarters After Immigration Raids

March 2, 2018 Antonia Blumberg, Huffingtonpost.com Resist! ICE, Immigration, Protests, San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO ― Hundreds of activists gathered on Wednesday outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building here to protest the arrests of more than 150 undocumented immigrants in recent days. Local activist groups organized the “emergency rally” to respond to the mass arrests in Northern California, just two weeks after more than 200 people were arrested in similar raids in the Los Angeles area. Some 200 protesters convened outside the ICE building in downtown San Francisco under an overcast sky, demanding an end to the raids. Several groups of demonstrators surrounded the building, shouting chants, marching, locking arms and carrying signs while police and ICE security looked on.

Texas High Schoolers Walk Out To Protest ICE Detaining Of Student

February 16, 2018 By Daniel Hampton, Patch.com Resist! Deportations, ICE, Protests, Youth Activism

HOUSTON, TX — Dozens of high schoolers in Houston walked out of class on Wednesday in support of a classmate who was living in the United States illegally and was detained by federal immigration authorities following a fight at school. Dennis Rivera-Sarmiento, a 19-year-old student at Stephen F. Austin Senior High School in the Greater Eastwood neighborhood, was arrested on Jan. 30 on a charge he assaulted a student. Court documents allege Rivera-Sarmiento struck a female in the head with his fist, KTRK-TV reported. But the immigrant advocacy organization United We Dream says Rivera-Sarmiento was defending himself against bullies who were making fun of him over his immigration status. The group says the bullies even threw bottles at him.

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