ICE Raids Benefit Bosses by Creating Fear in Workers

ICE raid in Los Angeles. Photo: Allen J. Schaben/LAT via Getty Images

In 2000, an immigration official admitted that the authorities rarely detained undocumented workers “unless the employer turns a worker in, and employers usually do that only to break a union or prevent a strike or that kind of stuff.”

David L. Wilson, Truthout

August 23, 2019

On August 7, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carried out coordinated raids at seven agricultural processing plants in Mississippi, detaining 680 immigrant workers. Officials told The Washington Post that the operation was “the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in U.S. history.”

The massive operation generated terror in immigrant communities already traumatized by a massacre targeting people of Mexican origin in El Paso, Texas, days earlier, and much of the U.S.-born population was outraged by images of detained workers’ sobbing children.

As has happened after workplace raids in the past, news accounts noted that the employers remained free while their workers were led off to migrant jails in handcuffs.[…]

Read the full article:

https://truthout.org/articles/ice-raids-benefit-bosses-by-creating-fear-in-workers/

Book Excerpt: What Happens to Immigrants Accused of Backing the MEK?

John Bolton with MEK leader. Photo: Sipa USA via AP

Recent coverage in the New York Times and other media has highlighted the connection between U.S. national security adviser John Bolton and a radical Iranian group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Many U.S. political figures have been associated with the group over the years, even though the U.S. government listed it as terrorist organization from 1999 to 2012. Apparently none of these political figures have suffered any consequences for their friendship with the MEK, which pays very high speaking fees. But what happens to immigrants accused of MEK ties?

We deal with this question in chapter 8 of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers, “Are Immigrants a Threat?”

U.S. immigration officials detained the Mirmehdi brothers, four Iranians living in Southern California, for nearly four years, claiming they were members of a terrorist group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Two of the brothers had attended a June 1997 demonstration in Denver organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCR), a coalition linked to the MEK. It wasn’t until four months later, in October 1997, that the State Department added the MEK to its list of terrorist organizations.

The NCR continued to enjoy the support of at least two hundred members of the U.S. Congress, even after the State Department added the coalition to the terrorist list in 1999, claiming it was another name for the MEK. When the NCR held a rally in front of the United Nations in New York in September 2000, Missouri’s two Republican senators sent a written statement of solidarity that was read aloud to the crowd. One of the two senators was John Ashcroft, who became attorney general in 2002 and fought to block the Mirmehdi brothers’ release on bond. A Justice Department spokesperson later claimed Ashcroft’s statement of solidarity did not “intend to endorse any organization.”

The Mirmehdi brothers were finally released in March 2005, a month after Ashcroft left office and as their case began to draw wider media attention. “This shouldn’t happen in the United States,” Mostafa Mirmehdi said of his family’s ordeal. “If it took place in Iran, I would expect it, but I came here for freedom.”

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

“Resistance at Tule Lake”: Screenings 3/10/19 and 3/28/19

On February 19 communities across the country honor the 77th anniversary of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. Here's a note from Konrad Aderer, who created Resistance at Tule Lake, a documentary covering little-known aspects of the incarceration. We’re also including information on two screenings of the film next month and on ways people can use it for education and organizing.—TPOI editor

Since our official release for home and educational purchase in October, we have sought to keep pushing the boundaries of who knows about and engages with the history of Japanese American resistance. So far, more than a dozen universities and libraries have purchased Resistance at Tule Lake, including three University of California campuses! We are continuing our educational outreach so that this film is available in many more of the approximately 600 Asian and Asian American Studies departments in the U.S.

This will require continued work and creativity through 2019 and beyond. We can still use your help in bringing Resistance at Tule Lake to a wider audience. Please take a few moments to write a review on Amazon and Netflix, or iTunes.—Konrad Aderer

Screening at Oakland Asian Cultural Center

Resistance at Tule Lake Film screening

Oakland Asian Cultural Center

Sunday, March 10 at 2:00pm

 388 Ninth St. Suite 290

Oakland, CA

Director and educators to present film at National Council
on Public History conference

National Council on Public History (NCPH) 2019 Annual Meeting

“Teaching about World War II-Era Detention and Prison Centers:
A Screening of Resistance at Tule Lake”

with director Konrad Aderer, and educators Cathlin Goulding and Freda Lin

Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 3:30pm

 Connecticut Convention Center

100 Columbus Blvd.

Hartford, Connecticut

Buy DVD

Rent or Buy on iTunes

Visit us at www.ResistanceatTuleLake.com! For further information, inquiries and screening requests, contact director-producer Konrad Aderer at producer@lifeorliberty.org. 

Watch the November 29 Families For Freedom Participatory Dialogue

On November 29 Families For Freedom sponsored a participatory dialogue on deportation and immigration detention with the co-authors of The Politics of Immigration. The event was live-streamed and can be viewed on the Families For Freedom Facebook page.

Many thanks to Families For Freedom for giving us the opportunity to be part of this intense discussion. With the present intense focus on immigration, it’s more important than ever for people to share their views and experiences. We look forward to facilitating more dialogues like this one next years, and we encourage other people and groups to schedule their own discussions.   

Not all dialogues are the same. The November 29 group included a number of people who were able to talk about their personal experiences with detention and deportation. Other dialogues have involved people who expressed very different views on immigration. For us the goal is to get these various ideas out in the open so that people can check them against their own experiences and those that others have had.

Note: the view is vertical at the beginning, but it’s corrected after a few minutes.

How can we make “Abolish ICE” a Reality?

Two of the immigrant rights movement’s historic demands provide a basis for actually closing the agency, and beyond that for building a movement to demand more fundamental changes.

By David L. Wilson, MR Online

October 25, 2018

Over the past few months immigrant rights activism has come to be defined largely by a demand to “abolish ICE.” The drive to close down Immigration and Customs Enforcement—a Department of Homeland Security agency responsible for internal enforcement of immigration laws—has figured in headlines, garnered support from activists and a few Democratic politicians, and provoked furious denunciations from conservatives. But despite the attention there seems to be little agreement on what’s meant by the phrase, or on how to turn it into a reality.[...]

Read the full article:

https://mronline.org/2018/10/25/how-can-we-make-abolish-ice-a-reality/

DSA members protest in New York, June 2018. Photo: Marty Goodman

Families For Freedom: “Fight to Win”

This is an excerpt from the Families For Freedom newsletter for September, treating the important issue of activist approaches to local ICE detention contracts. To subscribe, email info@familiesforfreedom.org; you can contribute to FFF here.)—TPOI editor.

Fight to Win

Families For Freedom

September 28, 2018

In early September, Hudson County announced their intent to phase out their detention contract with ICE by 2020. The news came after concerted efforts by local faith-based and advocacy groups to end the contract, and a lawsuit filed by the ACLU that targeted the Freeholders' shady actions in trying to get the contract renewed without community input.

The potential cancellation of ICE's contract in Hudson represents political strength: it would not be possible without growing support in our movement against immigration detention, if ICE's name did not now correctly represent malice and evil to the general public. Yet at the same time, it counteracts another win that also represented political strength, the establishment of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. On the one hand, the win of access to indispensable legal representation; on the other, the win of building political power among allies outside.

Critics of the phase-out are concerned that people detained in Hudson will be moved to remote detention centers, far from their families and attorneys. NYIFUP lawyers have come out in strong opposition to the planned phase-out on these grounds. In support of their position stand previous incidents, like when trans women incarcerated by ICE in Santa Ana City Jail, close to a dense network of support and services groups, were moved far away to a remote facility in rural New Mexico. Supporters of the Hudson contract ending—and of the growing number of other similar successes around the country—are behind it because of the political momentum it both creates and represents.

Beyond these two positions, there is also the question of efficacy. One of the organizations involved in the campaign against the Hudson contract stated that in order to abolish ICE "we must destroy ICE's capacity to incarcerate people." The statement is noble but the problem with it lies in the fact that this political win does not affect ICE's ability to incarcerate people. Anything that we can do to hinder ICE—to make 'em bleed—is absolutely worth doing, but we must understand that contracts with local jails and private prison companies come and go, whether in scandal or in silence.

Back in 2009-10, after people detained in Varick Street in Manhattan went on hunger strikes to draw attention to horrific conditions there, the jail stopped incarcerating people, many of whom would not be jailed in Hudson. But this decision was made by ICE, and its purpose was to get away from local scrutiny. More recently, in the wake of an 18-month-old baby being killed by her contact with the detention and deportation system, the City of Eloy pulled their contract with ICE for a family detention in South Texas. This too was a decision supported by ICE, and the contract has now been redrawn, this time with the city of Dilley, TX.

Across the country, more counties and cities are folding detention contracts with ICE, both under public pressure and without it. But as long as ending such contracts doesn't get people free, we have to ask ourselves what value these closures have. In contrast to ending contracts that promote information sharing between local law enforcement and ICE, or legislation barring ICE from certain areas, cancelling detention contracts more than likely just means relocating jails. Abolition doesn't mean the transporting of incarcerated people from county to county, nor the opportunity for new profit to be spun from immiseration; it means no more people locked up. What value do these campaigns have if the results resemble ICE's own past actions, and fail to promote political power among those incarcerated in these facilities?

To that point, it is noteworthy that in the debate that has unfolded about whether this closure is of value, the voices of the directly affected have been relatively absent.

Lawyers in movement are often correctly criticized for failing to see the forest for the trees, for working timidly within what's presently possible instead of pushing the boundaries of what is possible. But the concerns and criticisms raised by the lawyers here need not lead to a purely reformist attitude, focused only on procedural justice instead of actual justice. The concerns invite us who believe in abolishing ICE and the entire prison industrial complex to continue asking the question: how can we be effective? How do we ensure our fights are changing the conditions people suffer under, and not providing an outlet for the moral outrage of spectators? How do we fight to win?

How to Organize Against ICE Raids, and Why We Need to Do It

May 1, 2018 demo. Photo: Pioneer Valley Workers Center

Building a Rapid-Response Network to Defend Immigrant Workers

By Dan DiMaggio and Pioneer Valley Workers Center Staff, Labor Notes

August 16, 2018

As the Trump administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants, it’s urgent for worker centers and unions to organize to defend immigrant members.

In Western Massachusetts, the Pioneer Valley Workers Center has created a rapid-response network it calls “Sanctuary in the Streets” (SiS). The worker center, founded in 2014, organizes restaurant workers and farmworkers in the area. Worker committees set the network's priorities.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.labornotes.org/2018/08/building-rapid-response-network-defend-immigrant-workers

  

Immigration Raid in Nebraska Devastates Local Agriculture Industry and Families

By Melissa Cruz, Immigration Impact

August 13, 2018

A small town in Nebraska was rocked last week when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents raided multiple businesses, arresting 133 undocumented immigrant workers in an operation which has already created upheaval in the community and its local agriculture industry.

This raid is the latest amid a series of enforcement operations conducted by the Trump administration, including raids in Tennessee and Ohio. In addition to the workers, 17 employers were served arrest warrants last week for allegedly exploiting undocumented labor, among other crimes.[...]

Read the full article:

http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/08/13/immigration-raid-nebraska-agriculture-industry/

Resistance at Tule Lake Now Available for Schools!

From Resistance at Tule Lake

Our film is now live on the Third World Newsreel catalogue for educational distribution - on DVD and via streaming!

Buy or Rent Now for the Upcoming Semester!

The real history of Japanese American incarceration is minimized in most school curricula. As a result, the general American public does not know nearly enough about these experiences, and most have never heard of Tule Lake.

Why is it important for young people to learn about this shameful chapter of American history, and how thousands of Japanese Americans risked everything to stand up for their civil rights?

"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

Today, we are seeing similar government-sponsored abuse of immigrant communities, as well as the same tactics that were used to soften the reality of the experience. Breaking this cycle has been foremost in the conversations this film has sparked across the country, and our educational distribution is an opportunity to inspire the next generation.

Bringing Resistance at Tule Lake to classrooms across the country will empower students and educators to fully engage with this urgent, hidden history. This meticulously crafted and researched documentary is driven by powerful first-hand accounts, illuminated by expert commentary. It is accompanied by a comprehensive curriculum guide that invites students to delve deeply into this history, and draw connections to current issues faced by immigrants, refugees and communities of color.

Our hope is that instead of asking "what is Tule Lake?" more people will ask "what can we learn from Tule Lake?"

Click here to include the film in your curriculum

Read more:

https://mailchi.mp/8abdb36bb825/ylir49fjsq-2122497

Two Reports Describe Abuses at Detention Center

'Terrorized': Report Details Conditions at Child Detention Centers

A report filed in federal court details hunger, dehydration and forced sleeplessness at child detention centers in the Southwest.

By Alfonso Serrano, ColorLines

July 18, 2018

Frigid cells with foul-smelling drinking water. Children given rotten food and forced to sleep on concrete floors. No showers or clean clothes for days. Overflowing toilets in “dog houses.” These are just a few of the things detained children highlighted about the facilities where they were held.

“It was cold, very cold. I only had a t-shirt so I pulled my hands inside my t-shit to try to keep warm. There were no mattresses. We slept directly on the floor,” said Justin, a 13-yer-old immigrant from El Salvador. “I haven’t been able to call my father since I was locked up. I want to tell him where I am, and I want to talk to him.”

Justin’s description of United States detention centers, and testimony from interviews with 200 other immigrant children and adults, are part of an extensive report filed in federal court this week in Los Angeles by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/terrorized-report-details-conditions-child-detention-centers

Read the report:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4609538-Flores-0716-459-4.html

Report finds more than 800 complaints of hate-related abuse in immigration detention

ImmigrationProf Blog

July 19, 2018

“Shut your black ass up. You don’t deserve nothing. You belong at the back of that cage.” - Warden to M.C. at the West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca, TX

“[Go] look in the mirror to see King Kong.” - Officer to A.B. at Bristol County House of Corrections, North Dartmouth, MA

“No one will believe baboon complaints.” - Officer to A.B. at Bristol County House of Corrections, North Dartmouth, MA

These are a few of the comments discussed in a report published by Freedom for Immigrants, a California-based nonprofit that visits people held in immigration detention.[...]

Read the full post:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/07/report-finds-more-than-800-complaints-of-hate-related-abuse-in-immigration-detention.html

Read the report:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a33042eb078691c386e7bce/t/5b3174e46d2a73f2d1f56aab/1529967847644/FFI_NatReportAbuse_062518.pdf

What Does It Mean to Abolish ICE?

Activists and politicians want a total overhaul of immigration enforcement—but do we have a real plan?

By Julianne Hing, The Nation

July 11, 2018

On July 4, when Therese Patricia Okoumou scaled the pooled drapes of the Statue of Liberty, fellow protesters below her held up cards that spelled out, “Abolish ICE.”

Four days earlier, at the more than 700 rallies against the separation and detention of families at the US border, those same words were echoed again and again on homemade signs, in chants, and on T-shirts. Encouraged by a groundswell of anger, even national-level politicians are endorsing the elimination of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a shadowy law-enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.thenation.com/article/mean-abolish-ice/

CQ Roll Call via AP Photo / Bill Clark

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/

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

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

Emergency Request From Families For Freedom

Families For Freedom

June 14, 2018

https://www.facebook.com/families4freedom/posts/10155632938767666

A longtime member of Families For Freedom is in danger of being removed.

In protest of his prolonged detention, Pius Iyamu has been on hunger strike since May 11, 2018. In what appears to be retaliation for his strike, ICE and jail officials at Irwin County Correctional Facility indicated yesterday their intent to put Pius on a plane to Texas to facilitate his deportation in the coming days. As of this morning, neither Pius's wife nor Families For Freedom are aware of Pius's location.

In addition to the threat of removal, these officials told Pius that they would pursue criminal charges against him if he did not break his hunger strike. They are using the threat of further incarceration in an attempt to force him to relent to his removal after a period of brave and solitary resistance.

Families For Freedom has been in consistent contact with Pius and his family since 2013, when he was first detained by ICE. We supported Pius during his incarceration then, eventually helping him get released. He was arrested and incarcerated again in 2016, and has spent the intervening two years separated from his wife and daughters and detained in some of the worst facilities in the country.

He was arrested and incarcerated again in 2016, and has been separated from his wife and daughters since. One year ago, Pius filed a habeas corpus petition to challenge his prolonged detention, which the government has dragged its heels on despite no travel document being issued for his removal. Now, after keeping Pius in the dark about the status of his case for months, the government is acting suddenly in what appears to be retaliation for his hunger strike.

On the phone with us yesterday, Pius said the following: "I started this hunger strike because of the situation I am in. I have been held by ICE for two years with no court date. They have pushed me around from state to state, facility to facility, east to west coast. I have decided to go on hunger strike because I feel like someone needs to know what's going on with me... I am a father with a wife and daughters at home. They have a lot of medical issues and I am just trying to get back to them. It's hard. This is hard. All I am worried about now is my freedom. Any help and support that anyone can give to me will mean a lot. I just want to get free."

Please support Pius and his family by sharing this with your networks and contacting the Atlanta field office by phone and email.

Ask ICE to stop its coercive intimidation of Pius and demand he be released to his family.

Atlanta ERO Field Office Phone: 404-893-1210

Field Office Director Sean Gallagher sean.gallagher@ice.dhs.gov

Melissa Harper mellissa.b.harper@ice.dhs.gov

Deputy FOD George Sterling george.sterling@ice.dhs.gov

Deportation Officer Michael Taylor michael.taylor@ice.dhs.gov

Family Separation Update: UN Human Rights Condemns, KIND Deplores, Judge Question, Father Found Dead After Separation

Cartoon: Rob Rogers, http://robrogers.com/

Press briefing note on Egypt, United States and Ethiopia

Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Ravina Shamdasani

Location: Geneva

Date: 5 June 2018

Subject: (1) Egypt, (2) United States and (3) Ethiopia

[…]

(2) United States

We are deeply concerned that the zero tolerance policy recently put in place along the US southern border has led to people caught entering the country irregularly being subjected to criminal prosecution and having their children – including extremely young children -taken away from them as a result.

The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child. While the rights of children are generally held in high regard in the US, it is the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We encourage it to accede to the Convention and to fully respect the rights of all children. […]

Read the full briefing:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23174&LangID=E

I work with children separated from caregivers at the border. What happens is unforgivable.

The policy has a devastating emotional impact on kids.

By Katie Annand, Vox

June 6, 2018

Helplessness. It’s what I feel when children are faced with forced separation from their parent or caregiver at the US border. Anger, sadness, uncertainty, and dismay all follow closely behind.

I work as an attorney with an organization called Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, devoted to working with unaccompanied children. I hear firsthand stories that illustrate the severe impact of family separation on children; to say they are terrorized and completely devastated is an understatement. This new terror is compounded by the trauma already experienced by these children — the violence, persecution, and other harm they faced in their home country that caused them to seek protection in the US in the first place.[...]

Read the full article:

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/6/6/17431298/immigration-kids-ice-border

Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Family Separation at Border May Be Subject to Constitutional Challenge, Judge Rules

By Miriam Jordan, New York Times

June 6, 2018

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in San Diego on Wednesday refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s practice of taking children from immigrants when they arrive at the border to seek asylum, ruling that the “wrenching separation” of families may violate the Constitution’s guarantees of due process.

“Such conduct, if true, as it is assumed to be on the present motion, is brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency,” Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the Southern District of California wrote in his 25-page opinion.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/us/family-separations-migrants-court.html

A family was separated at the border, and this distraught father took his own life

That’s when Muñoz “lost it,” according to one agent, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the incident.

“The guy lost his s---,” the agent said. “They had to use physical force to take the child out of his hands.”

By Nick Miroff, Washington Post

June 9, 2018

A Honduran father separated from his wife and child suffered a breakdown at a Texas jail and killed himself in a padded cell last month, according to Border Patrol agents and an incident report filed by sheriff’s deputies.

The death of Marco Antonio Muñoz, 39, has not been publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security, and did not appear in any local news accounts. But according to a copy of a sheriff’s department report obtained by The Washington Post, Muñoz was found on the floor of his cell May 13 in a pool of blood with an item of clothing twisted around his neck.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-family-was-separated-at-the-border-and-this-distraught-father-took-his-own-life/2018/06/08/24e40b70-6b5d-11e8-9e38-24e693b38637_story.html?utm_term=.c36e5f1c1aaf

Reports on #EndFamilySeparation Protests

Protest in NYC’s Foley Square. Photo: NYU Immigrant Defense Initiative

Trump migrant family separations protested as U.S. is accused of violating human rights

The U.S. is violating "well established Inter-American standards," such as rights to family and to seek asylum and protection," said petitioners.

By Suzanne Gamboa, NBC News

June 1, 2018

Dagoberto A Melchor Santacruz hasn’t seen his 16-year-old partially deaf son since the two came to the U.S. border to ask for asylum. Maria Andrés de la Cruz awaits reunification with her three young children that agents separated from her and put in an icy cold cell. Antonio Bol Paau has been unable to find out where his 12-year-old son is for days.

Migrant advocates and attorneys accused the United States of human rights violations in an official complaint filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Thursday. The complaint came as activists protested in cities around the country against the Trump administration's latest tactic aimed at curtailing immigration.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/trump-migrant-family-separations-protested-u-s-accused-violating-human-n879076

Protesters Across the U.S. Decry Policy of Separating Immigrant Families

By Joel Rose and Marisa Peñaloza, NPR

June 1, 2018

Protesters gathered in more than two dozen cities across the country on Friday to condemn the Trump administration's practice of separating immigrant parents and children at the Southern border.

At least 600 children were taken from their parents last month as part of the administration's crackdown on illegal immigration.

"The stories are horrific," said Jessica Morales Rocketto, with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who helped organize the protest in Washington, D.C.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/01/616257822/immigration-rights-activists-protest-trump-administration-child-separation-polic

Enforcement Updates From Cato, Urban Institute, ACLU

The State of Immigration Enforcement

By Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute

May 16, 2018

President Trump’s administration is ramping up immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States and along the border.  However, the near-half-century low in illegal border crossers, the longer-settled illegal immigrant population inside of the country, and resistance by state and local governments are hampering his administration’s efforts to boost deportation.  Try as he might, his administration will not be able to ramp up removals to the level seen in the first term of the Obama administration.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.cato.org/blog/state-immigration-enforcement

ICE worksite raids are back. Here’s what we know about them

By Juan Pedroza and Molly M. Scott, Urban Institute

May 9, 2018

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a large-scale worksite raid at a meat processing plant in Bean Station, Tennessee, arresting 97 immigrants and grabbing national headlines. This action represents one of the Trump administration’s pushes to broaden immigration enforcement rather than target serious criminal offenders. But this type of enforcement isn’t new.

May 12 marks the 10-year anniversary of a massive raid at another meatpacking plant called Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa. It was the largest, single-site enforcement action conducted by ICE, which arrested and processed 389 workers in the 2,200-person town. In just four days, most of these workers were sentenced to five months in prison and deportation.[...]

Read the full article:

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/ice-worksite-raids-are-back-heres-what-we-know-about-them

                      

ACLU Report: Neglect and Abuse of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children by U.S. Customs and Border Protection

ImmigrationProf Blog

May 26, 2018

A new ACLU report (Neglect and Abuse of May 2018 Unaccompanied Immigrant Children by U.S. Customs and Border Protection) is attracting attention.  As the ACLU summarizes the report, "Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union featured in a new report released today show the pervasive abuse and neglect of unaccompanied immigrant children detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The report was produced in conjunction with the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.[…]

Read the full article:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/05/aclu-report-neglect-and-abuse-of-may-2018-unaccompanied-immigrant-children-by-us-customs-and-border-.html

Read the report:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lplnnufjbwci0xn/CBP%20Report%20ACLU_IHRC%205.23%20FINAL.pdf

People’s Press Conference and Update on Ravi Ragbir’s Case

From: Ravi’s Defense Committee

May 10, 2018

People’s Press Conference

Tomorrow, May 11th at 10 AM, the New Sanctuary Coalition invites you to a People's Press Conference, during which statements & testimonials will be read by people & their families who have been impacted by detention and deportation. At Foley Square in Lower Manhattan.

An Update from Ravi's Legal Team

On Friday, May 4th, we had an evidentiary hearing about whether there were fundamental errors during Ravi's old criminal case, which led to his deportation order.

As his legal team, we know that Ravi and the New Sanctuary Coalition fight every day to preserve due process and access to courts for noncitizens fighting deportation. In that regard, the hearing itself was a victory. It was the first time - in over a decade - where Ravi has been able to tell his story to a judge. We are grateful for that opportunity, and hopeful that justice will be done.

It was a long day of testimony and taking evidence, and our entire team is so grateful for all your support- from those who came out to Newark for this hearing or for past hearings, to those who joined in last week's Jericho Walks, and to all those who sent their positivity our way. Your presence and love has been so meaningful.

The judge did not issue a decision on Friday, and allowed both sides to submit post-hearing briefing. We do not expect a decision until after final briefs are due on June 22nd. Ravi's stay of removal extends at least until a decision is issued.

His check-in with ICE originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed to July 27th. To all those who were planning to come out tomorrow to accompany him, we encourage you to attend the People's Press Conference instead (details above).

Again, our sincerest gratitude.

In solidarity,

Ravi's Legal Team