LACKING ALL CREDIBILITY, ICE CONDUCTS IMAGE CAMPAIGN ON THE BACKS OF IMMIGRANTS
Updated: Mar 1, 2022
California Rapid Response Networks PRESS STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 18, 2020
Contacts:
Jesus Chavez, Centro Legal de la Raza, jchavez@centrolegal.org
Jesus Ruiz, Rapid Response Network in Santa Clara County, jesusr@sacredheartcs.org
Teresa Borden, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), tborden@chirla.org
Armando Carmona, Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice (IC4IJ), media@ic4ij.org
Abigail Salazar, San Francisco Rapid Response Network (SFRRN) abigail@dscs.org
LACKING ALL CREDIBILITY, ICE CONDUCTS IMAGE CAMPAIGN ON THE BACKS OF IMMIGRANTS
Video of ICE as “community protectors” on L.A. streets misses the reality of agents who kidnap protesters, hold children in hotels and run private detention centers. The California Rapid Response Networks affirm our commitment to protecting and supporting all immigrants in California. Please see our video.
CALIFORNIA — The Rapid Response Networks of California, below, condemn the cynical attempt by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to portray its illegitimate arrests of our neighbors as “protecting our community.” Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, these arrests plunge immigrant families into chaos.
These agents belong to the same Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that showed up without badges in Portland to grab Black Lives Matter protesters and throw them in unmarked vans . They are the same agency which the Los Angeles County sheriff rejected as a partner because its tactics made our region less safe. They are the same agents who run filthy private immigration detention centers where children are malnourished and cruelty is the norm. ICE is the same monstrous agency that is currently being investigated for forcibly performing hysterectomies on immigrants in detention centers. They are pushing the boundaries of their own cruelty. As the COVID-19 pandemic set in, these centers are now infection super-spreaders, possibly even exporting COVID-19 to other countries through deported victims.
This is how DHS & ICE seek to turn themselves into a paramilitary force at the beck and call of the thoroughly undemocratic Trump administration. And now they are trying to conduct a blue-washing campaign to look like protectors when they are really putting the entire country in danger.
We demand an end to immigration enforcement operations that put our immigrant community members and their families directly in harm’s way more than ever before now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We demand that ICE stay out of our communities in California. And we assert that an attack against one of us in California, is an attack against all of us and we are prepared to fight for our immigrant communities here, no matter what.
As a reminder, we strongly encourage our immigrant community members to know their rights to be prepared against ICE enforcement. Please see this link for Know Your Rights videos in a variety of languages from the ACLU . Additionally, please see this link from the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ) that includes the rapid response hotlines phone numbers for all the California rapid response networks (these hotlines are for EMERGENCY calls only).
Below are individual statements from the California Rapid Response Networks:
Los Angeles Rapid Response / CHIRLA : “This agency trying to portray itself as protecting our community while actually tearing it apart is the height of smirking cynicism. This is not policing, it’s bullying. As they continue to skirt due process, they are setting themselves up as an unaccountable, nationwide paramilitary force.