Sinister Security

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Elvira Arellano: Learn from our own history!

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Ravi's Deportation Has Been Delayed!

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The Latest Nonsense About Immigration—a Quick Guide

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https://mronline.org/2018/02/07/the-latest-nonsense-about-immigration-a-quick-guide/

By David L. Wilson, MR Online

February 7, 2018

We’ve seen and heard a lot about immigration in the past few weeks, and a good deal of it has been out-and-out nonsense. Many journalists and politicians simply don’t understand U.S. immigration policy, some consciously lie about it, and a few, like Donald Trump, manage not to understand and at the same time consciously lie.

Here’s a list of some of the immigration absurdities now circulating in the media and in the political class.

1. We have a big problem called “chain immigration.” People who say this are actually talking about the family-based visa system established by the 1965 immigration reform. The term “chain migration” refers to an age-old process of people settling in a new country and then sending for friends and relatives. Many or most European Americans got here through this kind of migration. So why do conservatives call family-based immigration “chain migration”? Simple: they claim to support family values, so they don’t want us to notice that they’re opposing a program that favors family reunification.

2. Family-based immigration means “a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” Most people don’t live long enough to create anything like the migration “chain” we find in President Trump’s rants and rightwing TV ads. It’s true that a naturalized U.S. citizen can sponsor green cards for a spouse, for parents, and for minor children, but the process involves many bureaucratic hurdles and delays. To sponsor other close relatives, such as siblings and adult children, the citizen confronts a labyrinth of quotas and restrictions, with delays stretching into decades for people of certain nationalities. Green card holders face even stricter limitations and greater hurdles.

In January Trump claimed that terrorism suspect Sayfullo Saipov brought in “22 people through the chain.” PolitiFact calculates that the 29-year-old Saipov, a green card holder since 2010, could only have done this by somehow “fathering more than 20 kids before he left Uzbekistan.”

3. We also have a good visa program called “merit-based immigration.” Currently the U.S. government makes immigration visas available for some people with special skills or employment opportunities; these visas are capped at 140,000 a year, including the applicants’ spouses and minor children. Conservatives generally like this program, but after years of charging that immigrants are “taking our jobs,” they’re naturally uncomfortable with the program’s usual name, “employment-based immigration.” So in the past decade they’ve been trying to rebrand it as “merit-based immigration.”

4. This program brings us people who “will contribute to our society and who will love and respect our country.” Republicans are trying to reorientthe employment-based visa program towards admitting immigrants with advanced degrees in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. This probably does contribute to our society, but the Republicans’ real interest is the new workers’ ability to benefit U.S. corporations. Recruiting these immigrants gives U.S. companies a technological edge; creates a “brain drain” for the immigrants’ home countries, often U.S. economic rivals like China and South Korea; and compensates for the shortage of qualified U.S.-born workers caused by the failures of our own underfunded education system.

5. Current immigration laws have “deadly loopholes” which allow “criminals to break into our country.” This is a reference to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which George W. Bush signed into law in 2008. The act was intended to protect unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S. border; instead of turning the children back, Border Patrol agents are required to hand them over to Health and Human Services while their asylum claims are considered. Most of these minors are Central Americans fleeing violence in their own countries—violence largely created by the U.S. demand for drugs and U.S. support for rightwing regimes.

There really is a loophole, though—for the Border Patrol. The law excludes “contiguous countries,” giving the agents freedom to ship Mexican kids back across the border to face whatever the drug cartels may have in store for them.

6. The only important immigration issue now is the legal status of immigrants known as “Dreamers.” The main media and political focus has been on the nearly 700,000 younger immigrants currently losing work authorizations and the protection from deportation they had under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), but more than 300,000 other immigrants, including Salvadorans and Haitians, are losing protections they had under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. And of course there are another 10 million out-of-status immigrants who never had any protections to lose; at least two-thirds of them have lived here for a decade or more.

7. But of course we can’t give all these people legal status. For much of the twentieth century—through 1986—Congress periodically provided an avenue to legalization for unauthorized immigrants with long-term residence. A 1938 report for the Roosevelt administration explained the reasoning: “It is not in the best interests of the United States that there should be a considerable number of aliens here who have resided in this country for many years and who are otherwise eligible for naturalization and anxious to become citizens, but who are prevented from doing so” because of a lack of status.

Why can’t we apply that logic now? Or was amnesty all right in 1938 because back then the undocumented immigrants were mostly white?

8. Still, we need to be realistic and compromiseon immigration. The White House talking points from January 25 laid out a hardline restrictionist agenda as the government’s bargaining position. Why shouldn’t immigrants and their supporters negotiate from an equally firm position? For example, polls show as much as 86 percent of the U.S. population supporting legal status for the Dreamers. Why in the world should we have to compromise on that? (The rest of Trump’s immigration agenda is also generally unpopular.)

9. At least we could compromise on Trump’s wall. There’s a widespread sense that it will do no harm to humor Trump by giving him $25 billion for increased border security. But even the existing border security is far from harmless. It disrupts border communities and causes environmental damage, and its main result has been driving migrants into inhospitable and dangerous terrain. More than 7,209 people have died trying to cross the Mexico-U.S. border in the last twenty years; for comparison, official estimates for deaths at the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989 are in the low hundreds.

What we actually need is a rollback of the border security regime, along with an investigation of corruption in the awarding of border security contracts. For example, how did we end up paying Boeing $1 billionfor a barely functional 53-mile “virtual fence”?

10. We can count on Democrats to do the right thing for the Dreamers. The first version of the DREAM Actwas introduced in 2001, before some of the current Dreamers were born. In 2009 and 2010 the Democrats controlled Congress and the White House. For two years the party leadership refused to put the bill up for a vote; when they finally allowed a roll call, in December 2010, the votes of five Democratic senators killed the legislation. Some Democratic politicians sincerely support immigrant rights; others are just trying to get reelected. We can only count on them when we’ve instilled a fear in their hearts that they may be looking for a new job after November.

11. Still, it’s up to the people in Washington; all we can do is make phone calls. Any progress that’s ever been made in this country has been driven by popular movements. Advances in immigrant rights will only come about when millions of people are backing immigrant activists in their struggles. We need to accompany them to immigration hearings; turn out for protests to defend their rights; reportand—if we can do it without endangering others—recordabuses by immigration agents; and consider risking arrest to prevent these abuses. We also need to do something seemingly less radical but no less difficult: educate ourselves on the realities of immigration policy and get this knowledge out to others, in personal conversations, through social media, at community meetings, at forums, screenings, and teach-ins—in any milieu where we can be heard.

“Knowledge is power,” according to an old adage. Rightwingers understand this; sometimes they even use the phrase as a motto. That’s why they’re working so hard to keep us in ignorance.

Trump Targets NY Immigrant Rights Activists

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https://www.amny.com/news/ravi-ragbir-detained-ice-1.16117103

The administration is now taking aim at a faith-based New York activist coalition. This morning ICE detained the New Sanctuary Coalition's executive director, Ravi Ragbir, during his scheduled check-in at the federal building in Manhattan. This followed the January 3 detention of another New Sanctuary activist, Jean Montrevil. The message was clear: the Trump regime is cracking down on the resistance.

At least 400 people gathered outside the federal building starting at 9 am today to show support for Ragbir as he attended his appointment inside. Supporters marched silently for more than an hour and then, at 10:30 held hands for a few moments, forming a chain around the building. When word came out that the activist was being detained and removed from the ICE office, the crowd rushed to the driveway leading into the building’s garage. A number of protesters attempted to block the vehicle carrying Ragbir out; the first attempts were beside the building on Duane Street and then continued for several blocks down Broadway, trying up traffic for about twenty minutes.

Duane Street: protesters surround vehicle carrying Ravi Ragbir

New York City police arrested a total of 18 demonstrators, mostly on Broadway in full view of City Hall; New York claims to be a “sanctuary city,” but its police persist in helping ICE agents carry out their detentions. Arrestees included two City Council members, Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams, along with Rev. Micah Bucey, Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, and other faith leaders. BuzzFeed News posted footage of the protests; among other police violations, the tape shows Jumaane Williams wincing in pain from tight wrist restraints.

As activists protested in Lower Manhattan, Trump was meeting with lawmakers in the White House to discuss immigration issues. During the gathering, the president reportedly described immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa as “people from shithole countries.” According to sources familiar with the meeting, Trump added: ““Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.” As Jonathan Katz, formerly the AP correspondent in Haiti, pointed out, Trump’s remark came one day before the eighth anniversary of the 2010 earthquake that killed tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, including Haitian-American citizens, in southern Haiti.

The New Sanctuary Coalition is asking for phone calls to legislators and government officials demanding Ragbir’s release.—TPOI editor

ICE detains immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir, prompting Manhattan protests

Ragbir displays his handcuffs

By Nicole Brown and Lauren Cook, AM New York

January 11, 2018

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center on the Lower West Side Thursday, chanting "ICE out now" and demanding to know the whereabouts of a prominent immigrant rights leader, just hours after two city councilmen were arrested during a similar protest in Foley Square.

City councilmen Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams were among 18 people who were arrested during the Foley Square protest sparked by the arrest of Ravi Ragbir, the executive director of faith-based immigrant rights group New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. Ragbir was detained when he showed up for a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, organizers of the rally said.[…]

Read the full article:

Immigration activist Jean Montrevil detained

By Tequila Minsky, Caribbean Life

January 11, 2018

With the piercing sounds of sirens and traffic, immigration activists, local politicians, and clergy braved bitter weather at the prayer vigil and rally protesting the detention of Jean Montrevil.

Montrevil was picked up during his lunch break — van transport entrepreneur — outside his home near Far Rockaway. He was on a deportation order.

Demonstrators prayed and then spoke. They held placards that read: “Free Jean Montrevil Now and Let Haitians Stay.”[...]

Read the full article:

https://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/stories/2018/1/2018-01-12-tm-jean-montrevil-detained-cl.html

Immigrant Shielded From Deportation by Philadelphia Church Walks Free

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NYC, Oct. 11: Panel Discussion on Immigration

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ICE arrests hundreds of immigrants in 'sanctuary cities'

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Texas’s Virulently Anti-Immigrant SB 4 Was Just Blocked by a Federal Judge

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Update on “Manhattan Church Provides Sanctuary for Mother Targeted by ICE”

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The Myth of White Safety in White Numbers

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Manhattan Church Provides Sanctuary for Mother Targeted by ICE

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Books on Immigration: Two Recommendations

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http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/en_los_campos_del_norte_20170630

Here are two books on immigration for which we’ve received recommendations from reliable sources, so please check them out..—TPOI editor

Elvira's Faith and Barack's Challenge: The Grassroots Struggle for the Rights of Undocumented Families

By Reverend Walter L Coleman (Author), John Womack (Editor), Elvira Arellano (Contributor)

Wrightwood Press (September 6, 2016)

John Womack, author of the acclaimed Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, writes this about Elvira’s Faith:

I can testify that it really is a wonderfully clarifying book, also a deeply encouraging book. It is about a young woman from Maravatío, Michoacán, intent in the economic wreckage of Mexico in 1995-96 just on making enough money to pay for her aged, unwell parents’ medicine, migrating north for work in Mexico, finally heading alone al Gran Norte, sin documentos, eventually for good in the US labor market, bearing a son here, eventually finding herself in Chicago, working in the crews cleaning planes at O’Hare, arrested in the typically hysterical post-9/11 raids to catch working people without papers, released, but under the constant threat of deportation—and then meeting the great Pilsen organizers, Emma Lozano and her husband, Rev. Walter Coleman, and joining their terrific fight for justice for undocumented migrants here.

Elvira is really the first of the great, conscious, brave, public champions of Sanctuary in the USA in the 21st century. She spent the year 2006-2007 living with her son in Rev. Coleman’s church, living every day protected night and day by the local community, then by plan, hers and the local underground’s, escaping “Homeland Security” to get secretly from Chicago to Los Angeles to begin a national campaign there for justice for the undocumented.

The rest you can read in the book, and hopefully colleagues, friends, and many students will too, learn from it, and act bravely on it. La lucha sigue.

In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte

By David Bacon

University of California Press; Bilingual edition (May 23, 2017)

UCLA African American Studies lecturer Paul Von Blum writes in Truthdig on June 30:

A new bilingual book by David Bacon offers both a dramatic antidote to the deplorable reality of racism and a majestic life-affirming view of these hidden women, men and children. "In the Fields of the North" is a landmark fusion of journalism and documentary photography. Bacon is an accomplished writer and photographer, with a long record of union organizing for the United Farm Workers, the United Electrical Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and others. He has effectively documented the impact of globalization, the degrading conditions of workplaces for many immigrants, the human consequences of migration, the political struggles for workers' and human rights, and many related topics in his books and commentary.

But above all, Bacon is a documentary photographer of extraordinary power, insight and skill. In his introductory comments to the book, he is modest-too modest-about contributing to the long history of socially conscious photography: "I hope my work contributes to this tradition today." I have had the privilege and pleasure of teaching and writing for many years about some of the giant American figures of this tradition, including Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Roy DeCarava and Gordon Parks.[...]

Read the full review:

Immigration Practices Challenged in Court: Can They Detain Kids? What About Citizens?

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/us/detained-immigrant-children-are-entitled-to-hearings-court-rules.html

A Ninth Circuit panel has ruled that the government needs to abide by its 1997 agreement to grant immigrant children bond hearings—for instance, the nine-year-old who was held in detention for 18 months. And now advocates are suing Miami-Dade County for holding a U.S. citizen overnight on an ICE detainer. (It was actually the second time immigration authorities mistook this person for an undocumented immigrant.)—TPOI editor

Detained Immigrant Children Are Entitled to Hearings, Court Rules

By Miriam Jordan, New York Times

July 5, 2017

LOS ANGELES — Undocumented immigrant children detained by federal authorities are entitled to

Border Patrol arresting kids. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

hearings to determine whether they should remain confined, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that immigration authorities must abide by a 1997 legal settlement that established a policy for the detention, release and treatment of minors in immigration custody.

That agreement, named the Flores settlement after the teenage girl who brought the original case, stipulated that a child in deportation proceedings be afforded a bond hearing before an immigration judge.[…]

Read the full article:

U.S. Citizen Detained by Mistake Sues Miami-Dade Over Immigration Enforcement

By Caitlin Dickerson, New York Times

July 5, 2017

Immigration lawyers in Miami-Dade County are challenging its practice of jailing people on behalf of federal immigration authorities, in a case that could test the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure so-called sanctuary cities and counties.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Federal District Court in Miami, lawyers representing a local resident, Garland Creedle, argued that the county had violated his Fourth Amendment right against unlawful seizure.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/us/immigration-sanctuary-lawsuit-miami.html

Fighting for the Sanctuary Workplace: Unions Mobilize to Protect Undocumented UPDATED

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The Trump Era Tests the True Power of Sanctuary Cities

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Two Recent Studies Debunk Anti-Immigrant “Alternative Facts”

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https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/reports/2017/01/26/297366/the-effects-of-sanctuary-policies-on-crime-and-the-economy/

Among the right’s favorite talking points are claims that “illegals” are “swarming over the border” and “sanctuary cities” are “breeding crime.” The anti-immigrant forces never present evidence, for good reason: there isn’t any. But there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, as two studies published this year demonstrate. Crime is actually lower in jurisdictions that limit cooperation with the federal deportation machine, according to research by the Center for American Progress, while a Brookings Institution report shows how demographic factors in sending nations have basically ended the 1970-2007 surge in undocumented immigration,

This doesn’t mean the studies are perfect. The Brookings report in particular has a strangely ahistorical approach to the push factors behind the recent immigration surge. The authors cite the Mexican economic crisis in the 1990s as a factor, but they don’t connect it with the effects of U.S.-inspired neoliberal efforts like NAFTA, which drove millions of Mexicans off the farm. In discussing Central American immigration the Brookings researchers ignore similar economic push factors and, strikingly, the wars of the 1980s, which forced hundreds of thousands of Central Americans to flee their homes. As for future immigration, the authors don’t mention the likely effect of global warming on the sending countries in this hemisphere.—TPOI editor

The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy

By Tom K. Wong, Center for American Progress
January 26, 2017
As the Trump administration begins to implement its immigration policy agenda, the issue of local assistance with federal immigration enforcement officials is back in the spotlight. So-called sanctuary jurisdictions are one focus of that debate. Sanctuary counties—as defined by this report—are counties that do not assist federal immigration enforcement officials by holding people in custody beyond their release date.1 Using an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dataset obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center,2 the analyses in this report provide new insights about how sanctuary counties perform across a range of social and economic indicators when compared to nonsanctuary counties.

To understand the effects of having a sanctuary policy, we statistically match counties based on a broad range of demographic characteristics and then compare sanctuary counties to nonsanctuary counties to better understand the effects that sanctuary policies have on a local jurisdiction.

The data are clear: Crime is statistically significantly lower in sanctuary counties compared to nonsanctuary counties. Moreover, economies are stronger in sanctuary counties—from higher median household income, less poverty, and less reliance on public assistance to higher labor force participation, higher employment-to-population ratios, and lower unemployment.[...]

Read the full report:

Along the watchtower: The rise and fall of U.S. low-skilled immigration

By Gordon H. Hanson, Chen Liu, and Craig McIntosh, Brookings Institution

Thursday, March 23, 2017

In “Along the watchtower: The rise and fall of U.S. low-skilled immigration,” Gordon H. Hanson, Chen Liu, and Craig McIntosh of the University of California San Diego find immigration to the U.S. of young, low-skilled workers will continue to slow until it reverses in 2050, regardless of U.S. policy, thanks to weak labor-supply growth in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Instead, a bigger issue of concern for the Trump administration should be a growing number of aging, undocumented permanent residents, the authors argue. Over the course of the next 15 years, the authors calculate, the population of Latin American-born residents over age 40 in the U.S. will grow by 82 percent.

From the early 1980s to the mid-2000s, the U.S. experienced a huge wave of low-skilled immigration, due in part to several macroeconomic factors—such as high U.S. incomes, relatively stable U.S. GDP growth, and slow U.S. labor-supply growth—that made immigration attractive to young, low-skilled workers from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, the authors note.

However, around the time of the Great Recession, the undocumented population declined by an annual average of 160,000 individuals between 2007-2014. By 2015, 75 percent of low-skilled immigrants had resided in the U.S. for 11 or more years, while the share of the population aged 18 to 33 had dropped to 27 percent.[...]

Read the full article:

https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/along-the-watchtower-the-rise-and-fall-of-u-s-low-skilled-immigration/

Download the paper:
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2_hansonetal.pdf

ICE Raids Update: Dreamer’s Released, Legal Resident’s Shot, and Sessions Rants

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https://thinkprogress.org/daniel-ramirez-daca-released-washington-49aed4248e12

The good news is that DACA recipient Daniel Medina Ramirezhas finally been released on bail, although the government is still pushing for his deportation. And there’s plenty of bad news. On Monday ICE agents shot and wounded a legal resident during one raid and dragged out a partially paralyzed man in another. Both raids took place in Chicago, which is one of the “sanctuary cities” ICE seems to be targeting. Also on Monday, anti-immigrant attorney general Jeff Sessions threatened to cut off funds from these cities—although activists feel that actually the localities cooperate too much with federal immigration authorities.—TPOI editor

DREAMer smeared as a ‘gang member’ by ICE released after judge finds he poses no threat

By Esther Yu Hsi, ThinkProgress
Daniel leaves detention. Photo: AP/Ted S. Warren

March 30, 2017

A 24-year-old undocumented immigrant protected under President Obama’s deportation relief program has been released, six weeks after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained him during an enforcement operation near Seattle, Washington.

Daniel Ramirez, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiary, hugged his brother after his release on Wednesday outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. Ramirez said in a public statement that he was thrilled to go home and thanked his supporters.

“I’m so happy to be reunited with my family today and can’t wait to see my son. This has been a long and hard 46 days, but I’m so thankful for the support that I’ve gotten from everyone who helped me and for the opportunity to live in such an amazing country,” Ramirez said. “I know that this isn’t over, but I’m hopeful for the future, for me and for the hundreds of thousands of other Dreamers who love this country like I do.”[…]

Read the full article:

What a Brutally Violent ICE Raid Can Tell Us About Trump's Creeping Police State

A Chicago shooting shows immigration agents and police officers are part of the same violent apparatus.

By Sarah Lazare, AlterNet

March 29, 2017

On March 27, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents unleashed terror on residents of a northwest Chicago home when an agent shot and seriously wounded a man in a house where eight family members were present, including a child as young as one.

“They didn't say anything. They just came in and pointed pistols in our faces and dragged us out,” Carmen Torres, the daughter of the wounded man, Felix Torres, told local news outlet DNA Info. "We didn't even have time to dress or grab milk for the baby."

Torres’ lawyer, Thomas Hallock, said in an interview with CBS Chicago, “He was shot immediately, or almost immediately, upon opening his door to see what the commotion was outside of his residence.”

ICE claimed an unidentified man pointed a gun at agents during the course of an arrest, but produced no evidence and admitted that Torres, 53, was not the individual targeted by the invasion. "It's a lie when they say he was holding a gun. He doesn't even own a gun," Carmen Torres said. "They shot my dad. They shot him, and I don't know why."[...]

Read the full story:

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/what-brutally-violent-ice-raid-can-tell-us-about-trumps-creeping-police-state

Monday's ICE Raids Should Be Investigated, Politicians Say After Man Shot

Reports surfaced of a second raid in Chicago Monday. Wilmer Catalan Ramirez, who is partially paralyzed, was dragged from his home by ICE agents, according to a spokesman for Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.

By Josh McGhee, dnainfo.com

March 29, 2017

CHICAGO — The son of a man shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers in Belmont Cragin Monday pleaded not guilty to gun charges filed previous to the ICE raid.

Felix Torres Jr. entered a not guilty plea on nine counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon stemming from a traffic stop Feb. 24 in Belmont Cragin, according to court records. He posted $5,000 bond.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170329/belmont-cragin/mondays-ice-raids-should-be-investigated-politicians-say-after-man-shot

Here's what Atty. Gen. Sessions got wrong about the law in his attack on sanctuary cities

There are several problems with Trump’s words, and Sessions’. To begin with, Trump misrepresents the rationale for sanctuary policies in many jurisdictions.

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times

March 28, 2017

U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions sounded passionate, wrathful and confident when he appeared at the White House press room Monday to deliver a blistering attack on sanctuary jurisdictions across the nation.

States and cities that thwart the federal government’s policies against illegal immigrants, Sessions said, would face severe consequences. He talked as though jurisdictions across the nation were actively violating federal immigration laws, pumping undocumented immigrants back onto the streets even after their convictions for serious crimes.

Sessions threatened to withhold or terminate federal grants from cities that do so or declare them ineligible for future funding. He even threatened to “claw back” funds that already have been advanced.[...]

Read the full article:

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-sanctuary-sessions-20170328-story.html

ICE Arrests: Are Activists and Trump Opponents the Target?

Read

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/23/politics/sanctuary-city-ice-raids/

Evidence is emerging that the February ICE raids and more recent detentions reveal what reporter Sam Knight calls “a pattern of deportation as retaliation.” Immigrant rights activists need to consider the most effective ways to expose and resist this maneuver by the Trump administration. Note the link below to a petition calling for the release of two Vermont activists detained last week.—TPOI editor

Source: ICE is targeting 'sanctuary cities' with raids

Administration is unhappy with local agencies that limit cooperation on detentions

One case study is Travis County, Texas

By Maria Santana, CNN

March 24, 2017

(CNN)Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been targeting so-called "sanctuary cities" with increased enforcement operations in an effort to pressure those jurisdictions to cooperate with federal immigration agents, a senior US immigration official with direct knowledge of ongoing ICE actions told CNN.

A sanctuary city is a broad term applied to states, cities and/or counties that have policies in place designed to limit cooperation or involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration operations. More than 100 US jurisdictions -- among them New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- identify as such.

High-ranking ICE officials have discussed in internal meetings carrying out more raids on those locations, said the source.[…]

Read the full article:

In Trump Era, a Pattern of Deportation as Retaliation Is Emerging

By Sam Knight, The District Sentinel via Truthout

March 22, 2017

Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions raise questions about the Trump Administration using deportation proceedings to punish political opponents -- both institutions and individuals.

Three undocumented activists in Vermont were arrested over the past week by ICE agents -- two of them, while leaving the office of an organization that advocates for immigrants' rights. In Texas, meanwhile, a federal magistrate judge on Monday confirmed that immigration agents were conducting raids in response to policy changes carried out by the county seat of Austin.

The Texas-based federal magistrate, Judge Andrew Austin, recalled how ICE officials had told him to "expect a big operation" and that it was "a result of the [Travis County] sheriff's new policy." This assertion was confirmed by the testimony of an ICE Agent named Laron Bryant.

Fifty-one people were netted in the raids. Twenty-eight of them had no criminal record whatsoever.

Read the full article:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39937-pattern-of-deportation-as-retaliation-emerging-in-trump-era

U.S. judge: ICE said Austin raid was because of ‘sanctuary’ policy

By Tony Plohetski, American-Statesman/KVUE News

March 20, 2017

Federal agents privately alerted two magistrate judges in late January that they would be targeting the Austin area for a major operation and that the sting was retribution for a new policy by Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez that dramatically limited her cooperation with them, according to one of the judges.

The revelation — made Monday in open court by U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin — conflicts with what Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told local leaders after the sweep, when ICE characterized the operation as routine and said the Austin area was not being targeted. It also provides evidence after weeks of speculation that Hernandez’s policy triggered ICE’s ire.

Read the full article:

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/judge-ice-said-austin-raid-was-because-sanctuary-policy/dHWeSUd7nyp0XPJ6HcW8NP/

Demand the release of detained human rights leaders Enrique and Zully!

Petition from Migrant Justice/Justicia Migrante

March 19, 2017

Sign the petition below to #FreeKike and #FreeZully

Enrique “Kike” Balcazar, is a seasoned human rights leader in Vermont. Kike has lived in the state since 2011, when he became one of the many migrant dairy workers who make Vermont’s iconic dairy industry possible....Zully Palacios is an active member of Migrant Justice. Zully has participated in Migrant Justice Assemblies, learning about the reality that dairy farmworkers face in Vermont....

On Friday, March 17, Enrique and Zully were leaving the Migrant Justice office in Burlington, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents targeted and arrested them. They are now in detention awaiting a court date. Neither has a criminal record. Their targeting appears to be political retaliation for their effective work in defending the human rights of workers and immigrants in this country.

Please sign to send the following letter to ICE Boston Field Office Director Todd Thurlow demanding the immediate release of Enrique and Zully, and calling for their deportation proceedings to be terminated!

Sign the petition:

http://migrantjustice.net/free-enrique-and-zully

Local Activists Continue to Organize Resistance to ICE Raids

Read

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-deportation-resistance-20170301-story.html

Media attention has shifted away from the government’s deportation campaign since the well-publicized raids in mid-February. However, ICE agents continue to detain people, and the resistance movement appears to be consolidating on the local level.—TPOI editor

Photo:Lauryn Gutierrez / Rewire

Organized resistance is forming to Trump's immigration crackdown

Kate Morrissey, San Diego Union-Tribune

March 1, 2017

Organized resistance to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is coming to San Diego, as advocacy groups are beginning to organize a rapid response network that could include hotlines, “solidarity teams" and even safe houses.

Meant to protect unauthorized immigrants, the network would be similar to what activists in other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, are working to implement.

Unauthorized immigrants have dealt with increased fear and anxiety since Trump signed his first executive orders on the subject, revising the policy of former President Barack Obama to focus on those who had committed crimes other than illegal entry. San Diegans forming a support network hope to ease fears.[…]

Read the full article:

In Trump Strongholds, An Effort Is Underway to Keep Immigrants Safe

By Cristian Benavides, NBC News

March 10, 2017

NEW YORK - In historically conservative Staten Island, where President Donald Trump won 57 percent of the vote, residents are readying their homes to keep immigrants protected from being deported.

People like Ruth, a local educator who didn't want her full name used so Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not identify her, are becoming part of a network to offer refuge to families at risk of deportation and do so in areas where Trump enjoyed strong political support.

“It's immoral to take children away from their parents,” Ruth said. “People came here illegally because there was no decent pathway to come here any other way.”[…]

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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/trump-strongholds-effort-underway-keep-immigrants-safe-n731941

San Francisco restaurant owners offer employees sanctuary workplace

By Joshua Sabatini, San Francisco Examiner

March 10, 2017

San Francisco restaurants are joining a national movement to establish sanctuary workplaces for undocumented employees and ensuring business owners know their rights if federal immigration officials raid their establishments.

In less than three months in the White House, President Donald Trump has increased fears of mass sweeps by federal immigration officials and penned an executive order to slash federal funding for cities like San Francisco that provide sanctuary laws to not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.[…]

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/san-francisco-restaurant-owners-offer-employees-sanctuary-workplace/