Obama gave an interview with “El Pistolero” radio show and it was featured on Univision.
Entries tagged as ‘Raids’
VIDEO: Obama Talks About Immigration
February 13, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Categories: immigration news
Tagged: immigration policy, obama on immigration, Raids, univision
Winning the Fight of Our Lives
October 13, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Subhash Kateel has written a great article in the current edition of LeftTurn. Going beyond green cards and legalization, Kateel writes about the immigrant prison-industrial complex and predictions that have unfortunately come true in recent years.
During the debate over Immigration Reform in 2006 and 2007, it was said that:
A system was developing that would systematically criminalize and attack immigrants’ lives as people of color and working people. This emerging apartheid would use the criminal justice-, prison-, and deportation systems – and any other system – at its disposal to make lives of immigrants – both legal and undocumented – as hard as possible. What we would see, whether we won reform or not, would be more arrests, more raids, more detentions, and more deportations. In sum, more destruction of our communities.
Sadly, this prediction has proved to be right on target.
We felt no satisfaction when government tactics confirmed our worst fears. No one wants to be right or prophetic when predicting the destruction of our communities.
For whatever reason the link to the full article at LeftTurn.org isn’t working. Click here to read the full text on the Education, Equity, Politics and Policy in Texas blog.
Categories: immigration news
Tagged: civil rights, DHS, ICE, immigrant apartheid, immigrant detention, prison-industrial complex, Raids
UPDATE: SC Raid Tears Community Apart
October 9, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Yesterday there was an AP article giving us a bit more information on Monday’s raid in Greenville, South Carolina.
One of the immigrants arrested, Magdalana Domingo Ramirez Lopez, talks about her experience coming the united states.
Lopez, 29, believed she was safe. But she spent most of Tuesday being fingerprinted and questioned by federal agents and a day later was coming to grips with being sent back to Guatemala. Her sons — ages 4, 5 and 6 — were all born in the U.S.
“The whole time I was there with police, I cried. I kept thinking about my sons. That I wouldn’t see them again,” she said.
She left Central America because she didn’t want her family to grow up in a place where she was so hungry at times that she had to eat grass and dirt.
“I came to the U.S. for work. I came in peace. My goal was to help my sons grow up in a better place. Now that’s gone,” she said.
For a slideshow of pictures from the raids, visit the Charlotte Observer.
Categories: Raids · immigration news
Tagged: greenville, ICE Raid, Raids, sc
VIDEO: Postville – There has to be a better way
July 22, 2008 · Leave a Comment
With recent raids in Maryland, Rhode Island, Colorado, Texas and now Hawaii - we must all remind ourselves what these raids really mean for the communities they target.
It is easy to become de-sensitized by the numbers, the legal justifications and the ICE PR machine that continues to hide the inhumanity that is the real story of the raids.
Watch this video, from CBS, on the Postville aftermath. When you are done, watch it again.
Now, ask yourself, how does this uphold American values? Family values? Community values? I understand that many of you are concerned with the enforcement of the law, but is that law based in humanity, integrity and justice for all?
There has to be a better way.
Categories: Raids
Tagged: annapolis raid, CBS, houston raid, ICE raids, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, loveland raid, postville raid, providence raid, Raids
ACTION: Protest the ICE Raid in Houston, TX
June 27, 2008 · Leave a Comment
To support immigrants detained by ICE, there will be a protest at the Detention Center:
Date: Saturday, June 28
Time: 10 AM-11 Am.
The theme is: “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”
No Round-ups Anywhere !!
Address is: Houston Processing Center
CCA
15850 Export Plaza Dr.
Houston, TX 77032
Join us in the fight for justice!! Bring your messages!! Raise Your Voice!! Stand-up for dignity and justice.
Make sure our message of solidarity is heard by those inside the Center.
See you there.
Working Hands do not Deserve Handcuffs: CHIRLA Denounces ICE Raids
June 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA, spoke at the National Commission on ICE misconduct and violations of 4th amendment rights hearing, which took place at the Cathedral Plaza Conference Center, in Los Angeles, CA.
Salas denounced the numerous ICE raids in California and across the nation. She spoke of the fear ICE created for Los Angeles families and told stories of immigrants unfairly affected by ICE’s unchecked need for more deportations and more detention.
Good morning my name is Angelica Salas, Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). CHIRLA’s mission is to advance the human and civil rights of immigrants and refugees, promote harmonious human relations and empower immigrants and their allies to build a more just society. CHIRLA is also part of the Los Angeles Raids Rapid Response Network made up of legal, community and labor organizations that work together to ensure that immigrants detained during raids have access to counsel and that their human and constitutional rights are protected. Our organization also works to organize workers impacted by raids so that they become actively engaged in the struggle for just and humane immigration reform and that they engage with other workers to inform them of their rights during these raids.
Los Angeles has seen the largest number of immigrants impacted by home and worksite raids. In October 3, 2007, a two week raid detained over 1,300 people. In February 7, 2008, close to 150 people were detained at Micro Solutions Enterprises. In second week of April 2008, we had a call everyday on our hotline letting us know that individuals were being detained at inbound warehouses in the Los Angeles South Bay. A total of 66 workers were detained by ICE authorities in this particular raid. Just two weeks ago, ICE informed the public that over 700 immigrants had been detained and deported in another one of its immigration enforcement operations. In Los Angeles everyday there are immigration enforcement operations. Everyday there are ICE agents going to people’s homes, worksites and communities. Every night in Los Angeles there are over 1,400 people detained in immigration jail. As Executive Director of CHIRLA and as a community member I have clearly seen immense human suffering and witnessed violations of human and constitutional rights as a result of ICE’s increased immigration enforcement.
Continue reading…
Categories: Raids · immigration news
Tagged: california, CHIRLA, ICE, los angeles, national commission on ICE misconduct, Raids
New Jersey’s Senator Menendez Gets Real about ICE and Racial Profiling
June 13, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Washington, DC – Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) delivered an important speech on the U.S. Senate floor yesterday, calling for reform to U.S. immigration policies and a renewed emphasis on protecting the constitutional rights of those improperly targeted by recent immigration raids.
In his speech, Senator Menendez said that “[t]he legitimate desire to get control over our borders has too often turned into a witch-hunt against Hispanic Americans and other people of color.”
The Senator also highlighted the moral stakes of the immigration debate, saying that immigration policy is “more than a legal issue – it becomes a human rights issue, and it is our job to do all we can to secure our country while protecting the dignity of all human beings. If we fail to do so, not only do we blemish ourselves, but we lose the moral high ground to be a beacon of democracy and a leader in human rights around the world.”
Let’s hope that this will quash any hope of Lou Dobbs and his potential gubernatorial run….
You can watch the senator’s speech in two parts below:
Part One
Part Two
Categories: Immigrant Rights · immigration news
Tagged: enforcement, new jersey, Raids, senator robert menendez
On Thin ICE
June 10, 2008 · Leave a Comment
A headline in the San Francisco Chronicle screams, 900 Nabbed in State on Immigration Charges. The Seattle Times reports, Feds Combing Jails for Illegal Immigrants. An AP article declares, Immigration Raid in Iowa Largest Ever in US and reports 390 arrests. In 2007, more than 276,912 US residents were deported. Thanks to a recent Bush Administration crackdown, the net cast by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) is wide–so wide, it turns out, that some of those being deported are US citizens.
Is ICE an efficient law enforcement agency? Or, in the words of Robert, 38, a US citizen twice deported to Mexico, is ICE “just throwing us out for nothing”?
Consider what happened to Peter Guzman. Last year Guzman, a US citizen born in Los Angeles in 1977, drove onto the tarmac of a regional airport in his hometown of Lancaster, about eighty miles northeast of Los Angeles, boarded a charter plane without a ticket and refused to get off. Guzman was arrested and sentenced, and served forty-one days in a Los Angeles County jail. According to his lawyer, Mark Rosenbaum of the Southern California ACLU, Guzman was excited about being released in time for his brother’s July wedding in Las Vegas. “It was a big deal to Peter. He was going to be the best man.” It never occurred to Guzman that in July he’d be eating garbage and bathing in the Tijuana River.
But on May 11, 2007, he called his family and said he’d been deported. According to the ACLU lawsuit, before his sister-in-law could find out exactly where he was and give him instructions, the line was cut. She overheard him ask, “Where am I?”
Categories: Detention · Immigrant Rights · Raids · Resources
Tagged: deportation, Detention, ICE, immigration, Raids
