Escraches Come North: “Incivility” or an End to Impunity?

"Jail for the Torturer!" Photo: Clarin/AFP

It’s hard to say now what direction the protests will take, but they could turn out to be the U.S. version of Argentina’s escraches. Someday members of our political elite may finally have to answer for their crimes in front of a judge and a jury.

By David L. Wilson, MR Online

June 29, 2018

Seven years of military dictatorship in Argentina ended in 1983, but the regime’s officers remained a powerful force. The newly formed democratic government tried to appease them by passing two laws that granted almost total impunity for the junta’s many crimes: the “disappearance” of as many as 30,000 people, systematic torture, the dumping of live detainees from airplanes, and the practice of seizing the children of murdered activists and handing them over to childless military couples.

In the mid-1990s many of the survivors began fighting back against the impunity.[...]

Read the full article:

https://mronline.org/2018/06/29/escraches-come-north-incivility-or-an-end-to-impunity/

Families For Freedom: “Keep the Heat On”

The activists at Families For Freedom sent out this email on June 22. We’re reposting their important message in full as a reminder that the immigrant rights movement now has the initiative and we can’t afford to let it slip away. (You can contribute to FFF here.)—TPOI editor.

Keep the Heat On

Families For Freedom

June 22, 2018

In angered response to the images and recordings of children and babies torn from their parents at the border, the media and political discourse on immigration has leapt forward in the past two weeks. We have seen previously marginalized analysis enter the mainstream, with cable news pundits making connections between family separation, residential schools and slavery, commentators discussing the inextricable links between the immigration and criminal punishment systems, and political candidates running with #AbolishICE in their platforms.

The blinders are lifting but those who have been on the front lines have seen this coming. However, being right is only meaningful if it both motivates and directs action. As more people grow more confident calling for the abolition of ICE, we need to ensure that our efforts are in alignment and focused about our objectives just as we have been about ending the separation of families. Our goal is freedom, point blank and unequivocal. This means ending all forms of detention, including the electronic shackles. 

We are clear about our goals and actions. Families for Freedom maintains two mottos that inform our strategy: Name the Oppressor, and Make Them Bleed.

We  are laser focused on the two ghouls that have led the Trump administration’s acceleration of the detention and deportation system: Stephen Miller and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. They are the ones pushing the buttons on the present terror. They are organized and they have detailed plans to carry out their program of ethnic cleansing in pursuit of a white country. We know what kind of people they are: white supremacists with clear and unambiguous histories. Targeting them directly means also targeting the networks that support them and that have been  critical to their growth, including the fascist anti-immigrant foundations NumbersUSA, Center for Immigration Studies, and FAIR. These groups can be fought. Sessions can be brought down.

There is no question that the current nightmare predates Trump, that the legal and carceral apparatus inherited by these goons was built and maintained by Clinton, Bush, and Obama. But as long as Sessions and Miller are close to power, our most urgent task is taking them out.

As the folks at Grassroots Leadership pointed out yesterday, it is also a matter of stripping them of their tools.The mechanism Sessions employed to separate children from their families is the criminalization of immigration—specifically the prosecution of all migrants arrested crossing the southern border. Almost half of all federal criminal prosecutions in 2017 were for the crime of crossing the border. This is a piece of the many ways immigrants end up in the crosshairs of the detention and deportation system: from the arrests of asylum seekers at the border to the detention and deportation of long-time residents due to criminal convictions. If the Democrats in Congress who believe themselves to be allies of immigrants are serious about ending this violence, they need to bring about the end of the prosecution of illegal entries. They also need to bring about the removal of Steven Miller, seeing that “those who are appointed, can be disappointed.”

With the targets and the horizons defined, the actions we take to make ‘em bleed in the short term have more clarity. As Bayard Rustin said: “The only weapon we have is our bodies and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn.” The recent actions in Portland, D.C., New York, and all the others exemplify this.

Families for Freedom remains strong in the call to end the criminalization of immigration, to abolish ICE, and to destroy the detention and deportation machine. To end business as usual we need to step outside our comfort zones and take action. Below are just a couple of things that you can do right away and there will be more as things unfold, so stay vigilant and see you in the streets!

Target Contractors for Child Detention

Turn out on June 30 for the National Day of Action

#OccupyICE in Your City

Family Separations Inspire Fresh Resistance: Two, Three, Many Portlands?

There’s major pushback against Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting family units seeking asylum—protests at ICE offices, a new sanctuary action, public shaming of rightwing officials. The resistance doesn’t seem to be letting up, and street protests are planned across the nation for June 30.—TPOI editor

Mothers and babies occupy the New York City ICE Office to protest Trump administration 'zero tolerance' immigration policy

Inside the Manhattan Federal Building. Photo: ACT.tv

By Victoria Bekiempis and Janon Fisher, NY Daily News

June 21, 2018

Angry moms, some rocking infants in Baby Bjorns, crowded onto the ninth floor of the federal building Thursday in downtown Manhattan to air their grievances against the Trump administration’s “zero policy” toward border crossing.

Though the policy of separating children from their parents was reversed Wednesday with an executive order, the group of mad moms said they were still upset.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ny-metro-mothers-children-babies-occupy-ice-office-20180621-story.html

Guatemalan-born mother Debora Barrios-Vasquez fights deportation from Upper West Side church

The 32-year-old has two children, who are U.S. citizens.

Debora Barrios-Vasquez. Photo: Abigail Weinberg

By Abigail Weinberg, amNewYork

June 21, 2018

A Guatemalan-born woman facing deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking physical sanctuary in an Upper West Side church, the New Sanctuary Coalition announced at a news conference Thursday.

Debora Barrios-Vasquez, 32, fled Guatemala in 2005 and has been living in New York ever since. Her children, 10 and 2, are both United States citizens. She was pulled over for a traffic violation in 2011 and had regular check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since then, but in February, ICE ordered her deportation.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.amny.com/news/debora-barrios-vasquez-sanctuary-1.19345675

[Barrios-Vasquez denies that there was a traffic violation; she says she was racially profiled.—TPOI editor]

ICE Shuts Down Its Portland Office After Protest Camp Blocks the Entrance

The federal immigration agency closed its building because of "safety concerns resulting from the ongoing protests."

Photo: Icon Sportswire Via Getty Images

By Katie Shepherd, Willamette Week

June 20, 2018

The Portland demonstrators protesting the Trump administration's family separation policy have achieved a small victory.

After several days of protests blocking the front entrance, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has temporarily shut down its operations at its Portland office.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2018/06/20/ice-shuts-down-its-portland-office-after-protest-camp-blocks-the-entrance/

Kirstjen Nielsen Is Confronted by Protesters at Mexican Restaurant: ‘Shame!’

By Sarah Mervosh, New York Times

June 20, 2018

Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, got an earful while she was eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington on Tuesday night.

With tensions continuing to escalate over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that separates children from their families after illegal crossings at the border, a group of protesters confronted her.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/kirstjen-nielsen-protesters-restaurant.html

Stephen Miller called 'fascist' by protester at Mexican restaurant

By Brooke Seipel, The Hill

June 21, 2018

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller was called a fascist earlier this week while dining at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., according to the New York Post.

The encounter took place on Sunday at Espita Mezcaleria. The Post reports that a patron of the restaurant called out Miller — an immigration hard-liner — over the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy that separates migrant families caught crossing the border illegally.[…]

Read the full article:

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/393403-stephen-miller-called-fascist-by-protester-at-mexican-restaurant

Roseanne, Immigration, and the Unasked Question

[T]here’s a second way the elite can exploit immigrant workers—as scapegoats. When people like Dan and Roseanne complain about their economic problems, the superrich and their hired propagandists point their fingers at undocumented immigrants.

By David L. Wilson, MR Online

June 18, 2018

On May 8, a few weeks before its cancellation, the popular sitcom Roseanne devoted an episode to immigration.

The main focus was on the title character’s anit-Muslim prejudices, but the plot hinged on a problem for Roseanne’s husband, a construction contractor: his loss of drywall installation work to a rival who employs undocumented immigrants. “I got underbid on Al’s job,” Dan, the husband, explains to Roseanne. “He’s using illegals… It ain’t right, Rosie. These guys are so desperate they’ll work for nothing, and we’re getting screwed in the process.”

This scene got its share of pushback.[…]

Read the full article:

https://mronline.org/2018/06/18/roseanne-immigration-and-the-unasked-question/

A New Item at “Immigration and the Law: A Chronology”

We have now added the Immigration Act of 1929 to Immigration and the Law: A Chronology. This was the first law making it a crime to cross the border without authorization.

1929: Immigration Act. For the first time makes it a crime to enter the country by fraud or anywhere other than at an official port of entry. This becomes a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. Reentry of a previously deported alien is now a felony. The act adds two deportable classes: immigrants convicted of carrying any weapon or bomb and sentenced to any term of six months or more, and immigrants sentenced to a year or more for violation of Prohibition laws. Known as “Blease’s Law,” for the white supremacist senator who sponsored it.

Here is a link to an article by Kelly Lytle Hernandez giving some more history on the law, which was proposed by a white supremacist from South Carolina.

We weren’t able to find the text of the law online. If any reader knows how to access the text, please write us at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com. Also, we welcome suggestions about other additions to the chronology, or any corrections you feel are necessary. We want this chronology to be a useful tool for people trying to understand the origins of today’s immigration system.

Book Excerpt: What’s the Flores Settlement?

No, Flores doesn’t mandate this. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

As outrage rises over the Trump administration’s family separation policy, Republican leaders have been trying to put the blame elsewhere—for instance, on the 1997 Flores agreement. In fact, on June 14 the GOP’s House leadership announced that it had a “moderate” bill that would end the family separations. It turns out the actual text would only end the Flores agreement.

We explain a little about the settlement and its history in Chapter 11 of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers.

Locking Up Kids

In July 1985, four girls ages thirteen to sixteen seeking refuge from war-ravaged El Salvador sued the U.S. government and two private for-profit contractors over their detention. One of the plaintiffs was detained at a facility run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Laredo, Texas, where authorities subjected her to strip search procedures—including vaginal and anal inspections—every time her attorney visited. The other girls, including lead plaintiff Jenny Lisette Flores, were held at a detention center in Pasadena, California, operated by Behavioral Systems Southwest. The children were not allowed to see visitors, and were not provided with any opportunities for education or recreation.

At the time, U.S. border and immigration authorities were detaining immigrant children—as many as 2,000, according to advocates—together with unrelated adults under prisonlike conditions. The numbers had grown after the government changed its policy in September 1984 and began releasing unaccompanied minors only to a parent or guardian; previously children could be released to any responsible adult. Advocates said the new policy scared away unauthorized parents, who feared arrest if they tried to claim their children.

Flores v. Reno was finally resolved in 1997 with the legally binding “Flores Settlement Agreement,” mandating specific protections for minors in immigration custody. Some of the settlement’s rules were codified into law over a decade later with the passage of the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Under the Flores settlement rules, unaccompanied minors from Canada or Mexico are generally returned home “voluntarily” after a few days in custody. Children from other countries must be transferred within seventy-two hours to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which releases them to a sponsor or a shelter and provides support services through its Division for Unaccompanied Children’s Services.

[We’re occasionally posting excerpts from the new edition of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers. You can order here or from your favorite bookseller.]

White House Statement on Family Separation

Courtesy of @pourmecoffee

THE WHITE HOUSE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Statement by the President