Los Angeles, CA – Braving wind and rain, activists and immigrants stood in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center on Nov 2. They were there to demand an end to the detention of Central American children who are currently locked up in multiple facilities across the country.

Between Oct. 1, 2013 and Sept. 30, 2014 over 68,000 unaccompanied children were detained by the Border Patrol at the U.S. Mexican border. This was the highest number of children detained at the border, ever. 2015 has been the second highest record. Almost 80% of these children came fleeing Central America from countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, all of which had long history of U.S. intervention.

In 2014, federal judges ordered the release of these children from detention centers. However, many of them are still in jail. Activists in Los Angeles joined others across the country as part of a national week of action to demand an end to family detentions and to free these children.

In front of the entrance, they held a banner that read “Legalization for all!” As passersby and cars honked and yelled in support, federal agents came out of the building. They threatened activists with arrest for being on federal property. Activists were on the sidewalk and stood their ground, which is public property. Federal agents went back inside.

The group chanted, “What do we want? Freedom! When do we want it? Now!” They were joined by a mother and daughter who fled from Honduras. They told the story of how they traveled across the Mexican border and were later locked up by Border Patrol. The mother, seven months pregnant, spent almost a week detained in McAllen, Texas. A young woman spoke to the media and group about her experience crossing the border and detention.

Many of the jailed children and mothers are being held in Texas.

Maria Ocampo stated, “It's truly heartbreaking that our children are treated like criminals and are imprisoned. They are the future. They deserve the right to be with their families and in school. Imagine how traumatizing it can be for a 5-year-old to be in a facility during his or her birthday or during holidays. No child should have to be detained for fleeing the violence in their home country. Texas needs to stand with the immigrant community. Enough with the racist attacks on Mexicans. Texas Governor Abbott needs to realize we the people are stronger than he is, we have the ultimate decision and we will fight the injustices he is doing in Texas. I stand in solidarity with my brothers and sisters in Texas.”

#LosAngelesCA #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #immigrantRights #detentions #Antiracism

Minneapolis, MN – More than 40 people protested outside the office of Senator Amy Klobuchar on July 24, demanding the closing of ‘family detention centers’ housing thousands of immigrant mothers and children near the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. The largest family detention center in Dilley, Texas houses around 2000 immigrant mothers and children, the vast majority of whom fled rampant violence and economic deterioration in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. After a harrowing and dangerous journey across several borders, these mothers and children are suffering yet another nightmare of being jailed indefinitely by the U.S. government under terrible conditions. The Dilley prison is a private prison operated for profit by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

The Minneapolis protest was organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC). It focused on Senator Klobuchar because she failed to sign onto a letter signed by 30 other U.S. Senators asking President Obama to close the immigrant family detention center in Dilley and to stop detaining immigrant women and children who cross the border seeking asylum. Eyewitnesses report that conditions in the Dilley prison are terrible: thousands of children jailed with their mothers suffering from inadequate access to medical care, insufficient access to lawyers, no translation services for the many indigenous families there who don’t speak English or Spanish, and an appalling lack of other basic necessities.

During the protest, a delegation of four of the protesters went into Senator Klobuchar’s office and met with one of Senator Klobuchar’s staff members. The delegation included an immigration lawyer who has been to the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, a member of the United Church of Christ active in their immigration work and two members of MIRAC. Senator Klobuchar’s staff member agreed to get more information and have a follow-up meeting.

These ‘family detention centers’ opened amidst the rise last year of immigrant children and families crossing the U.S. border seeking asylum. In response, the Obama administration initially threatened to deport them, but under pressure, said the government would hear their asylum claims. Rather than following the normal procedure of releasing them to stay with family members in the U.S. while awaiting their asylum hearing date, the administration instead decided to house them indefinitely in massive family detention centers like the one in Dilley. Since then, thousands of mothers and children are jailed there indefinitely while their asylum cases are processed. Protests around the country have increased the pressure on the Obama administration to close these ‘family detention centers.’

#MinneapolisMN #InJusticeSystem #PeoplesStruggles #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #immigrantRights #detentions #Antiracism

We can not wait for politicians to address our needs. We need to continue protesting and organizing. The ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) attacks continue with more raids, more enforcement and heightened vigilance at work sites. Next month companies will have 90 days to correct any discrepancy in documents of their workers, as part of a crackdown announced by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

The companies that do not correct any kind of errors in documentation and fail to fire undocumented workers will be subject to major fines and possible criminal charges. This is a harsh, direct attack against immigrant workers that will cause unemployment and destruction of the wellbeing and lives of Latino families. We must resist this attack. Congress also approved an amendment to the Homeland Security Act for more money to militarize the southern border with Mexico, hiring more border patrol agents, electronic surveillance and constructing more ICE detention centers.

We need to organize protests against the ICE raids and deportations. The ICE detention centers are full. Our people suffer horrible conditions and abuse. We must protest and demand better conditions and their release. We must support the growing religious immigrant sanctuary movement and support the students who struggle for better education and jobs.

Our tactics need to be more militant – similar to the historic struggles of our Chicano and African American people. For example we should use civil disobedience, like in L.A. on Aug. 15, against the institutions and organizations who attack us and those who are against immigration reform, like the Republican Party. We should also support the economic boycott called by pro-immigrant rights groups in Arizona for Sept. 3-9. Arizona has proposed more racist state laws.

We need to focus pressure against the congress with delegation visits from the community. We can organize mass marches like May 1 and Aug. 18 in L.A. We must develop a long range plan that includes the call for national unity of community groups and activists with a base, unity with groups in Mexico and Central America, a national conference in early 2008, building towards a great labor and economic boycott for May 1 2008. We can build the movement for immigrant rights, by applying pressure on the presidential candidates in the upcoming elections and by participating in the movement against the Iraq war.

Nothing worthwhile comes with out a struggle. There are powerful forces that are working to exploit and oppress the undocumented and to hold down all Latino people. Now is the time to strengthen our movement, to beat back the attacks on the undocumented and to promote full equality and legalization. We can and will win.

#UnitedStates #Analysis #ChicanoLatino #ImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE #detentions

The May 6 protest was the follow-through on an open letter calling on President Obama to sign an executive order declaring a moratorium on immigration raids and deportations within the first 100 days of his administration. This event was preceded by several public civil disobedience trainings, the last of which was held at the May 1 immigrant rights march in Minneapolis.

This action was an escalation in response to the silence of the administration demonstrated by the continuation of raids and deportations which have torn families and communities apart, resulting in numerous human rights abuses and over 90 deaths in ICE detention centers since 2003. Over the past several years, the immigrant rights movement has organized marches, hunger strikes, petitions and lobbied for change, all with the goal of ending these human rights abuses – yet the raids and deportations have continued.

President Obama has said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Community members have decided to take matters into their own hands to realize this message. Phillip Lickteig, one of the dozens of community members who participated in the action, states, “President Obama, we take you at your word. We are non-violent because we wish, through contrast, to expose the system of violence and fear that pervades the communities, workplaces, schools and homes of the undocumented and their children. We are disobedient because the law is unjust.”

#BloomingtonMN #News #ICE #civilDisobedience #ImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE #detentions