Wednesday, January 17, 2018

ICE Targets Activists—Take Action!

New Yorkers arrested as ICE detains Ravi Ragbir. Joana Toro /VIEWpress/Corbis via Getty Images
There can now be little doubt that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is targeting immigration activists and their families for detention and deportation. Today's Democracy Now! program, linked to below, devoted much of its time to coverage of these cases. We are also providing links to other coverage.

It’s important to stay informed, but it’s just as important to act. New Yorkers can support Jean Montrevil and Ravi Ragbir on Thursday, January 18, by coming out for one or both of two actions, and everyone can support Washington state activist Maru Mora-Villalpando by signing a petition:
We’ll try to update you as we learn about other support actions.—TPOI editor

NYC Immigration Activist Jean Montrevil Speaks Out After Deportation to Haiti: “My Heart Is Broken”

By Democracy Now!
January 17, 2018
On Tuesday, immigrant rights leader Jean Montrevil was deported to Haiti after residing in the United States for over three decades. He came to the U.S. from Haiti with a green card in 1986 at the age of 17. During the height of the crack epidemic, he was convicted of possession of cocaine and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He served that time. Upon his release, he married a U.S. citizen, had four children, became a successful small businessman, as well as an immigrant rights activist. He has had no further interaction with the criminal justice system. Joining us from Haiti is Jean Montrevil, who was deported to Haiti on Tuesday. We are also joined by Jani Cauthen, Jean’s former wife and the mother of three of his children.[…]

View this and subsequent segments, or read the transcripts, starting here:

ICE tracks down immigrant who spoke to media in SW Washington: ‘You are the one from the newspaper’
After talking to The Seattle Times about his girlfriend’s arrest by immigration officials, a Pacific County man was detained himself. He said an agent told him it was because of what had been written.

By Nina Shapiro, Seattle Times
December 3, 2017
A man who recounted his longtime girlfriend’s arrest in a Seattle Times story about ramped-up immigration enforcement in Pacific County last month has now been detained, and says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents told him the arrest was because he was in the newspaper.[…]

Read the full article:

Husband of Peruvian woman taking sanctuary at Boulder church detained by ICE

By John Bear and Jenn Fields, Denver Post
January 11, 2018
When Ingrid Encalada Latorre’s husband, Eliseo Jurado, stopped by a Westminster Safeway on Thursday to pick up some items for his 9-year-old stepson, Bryant, and 2-year-old son, Anibal, she didn’t anticipate that six agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement would snatch him.

“This is an attack on me,” Encalada Latorre said through an interpreter inside the Boulder Unitarian Universalist Church, where she has taken sanctuary for less than a month to avoid deportation to her native Peru.[…]

Read the full article:


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