ICE Raids and Mayor Perez
Queers without Borders were represented at the Stop The Raids public forum held last Saturday at St. Augustine’s Church. One of the hand-outs that caught our eye, this being election season in the city of Hartford is the following.
Stop the Raids!
There is reason to believe that Mayor Perez and his police department openly collaborate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport Hartford residents. Mayor Perez and Police Chief Daryl Roberts commended ICE for its support in a sweep on June 20 that arrested 17 alleged criminals. Perez call this a positive example of “and ongoing collaborative effort amongst local, state, and federal authorities.” However, no evidence of criminal charges was brought against two Latino immigrants, Enendi Diaz and Marco Roblero, caught up in the sweep. Enendi had telephoned his brother in a panic on that day, warning him that ICE had broken into his living room on Standish Street and was going to deport him.
ICE has felt welcome to experiment on Hartford residents since August 2003. That was the beginning of the Hartford Pilot Program which, according to the Associated Press, assigned ICE officers to courts to promptly arrest people who lost their immigration cases. Most of these cases were civil, not criminal. Immigration attorneys accused the Pilot Program of denying detainees their right to appeal and setting their bonds prohibitively high, while giving no special consideration to persons seeking political asylum.
The results of ICE’s experiment in Hartford were chilling. A reported 94% of immigrants detained by ICE after a judge’s ruling, were deported. This was a crucial early step in ICE’s overall plan, known as Operation Endgame, which tracks immigrants electronically, enlists local police as collaborators, assigns dozens of federal agents to rove the country, and sets up and elaborate system of immigrant black sites to deport hundreds of thousands of people. ICE’s methods from the Hartford Pilot Program have been adapted to cities nationwide.
Why did ICE choose Hartford as a testing site for such a sensitive program? Did Mayor Perez know of the program and remain silent? One thing is beyond a doubt: ICE continues to be active in the streets and neighborhoods of Hartford. Just ask Mazimo Morales, who found a dozen agents outside his Dorothy Street apartment when he stepped out to warm his car’s engine. He and his younger brother were arrested without a warrant. Or try Eldr Diaz, whose brother, cousin, and sister-in-law were deported within a week of their warrant-less arrest.
The results of ICE’s Hartford Pilot Program victimize families far beyond the city limits. The arrest of immigrants in state and federal buildings has become commonplace in Connecticut.
Mayor Perez’s continued silence about the ICE raids shows that he lacks the political will to stop them. Only a mass movement can achieve it by winning legalization for all and thereby eliminating the basis for ICE attacks. So long as there are “illegal” workers, the employers will have leverage to lower wages and remove benefits for all the rest. ICE raids are a ploy to maintain the status quo.
STOP THE RAIDS! START THE FIGHT BACK!
For information on how you can help call: 215-431-5775
Stop the Raids! Students of Trinity College
5 comments
You all know that I’m not a Perez supporter, but I have to question the allegations that he’s welcomed in the ICE agents. I saw this mentioned on some of the flyers that went out for the event and was surprised. First, it’d be politically stupid of him. He’s not the brightest about political smarts, but in a city like Hartford where almost everyone knows at least one immigrant living here, legally or illegally, it would not sit well with voters, I think. And secondly, the one thing that he does stand for that I agree with is his support of labor. When we have big unions coming out in support of immigrants’ rights, it seems like something the mayor would be on board with.
Not saying it’s untrue, just that I’m wondering what evidence there is of this.
Now, welcoming ICE agents and actually trying to get them to leave is another story.
My question– have ANY of the local politicians come out to oppose the ICE raids? Have any of the city council bothered to stand at the many rallies?
Kerri
Maybe a little investigation is needed. I’ll call back to the students,tell them about the blog and see if they wish to respond. I would think that if ICE used Hartford for their pilot program they would have had to be “okayed” by someone. I don’t know about Perez(I see him as a sneaky man) but we know well his support for Lieberman. That’s a good question about his support for the unions so maybe he supports immigrant rights. I know he is a big supporter of 32 BJ. (maybe for the votes) The leaflet says that he has remained silent on ICE. I know the students stated that he has cancelled meetings with them. Is remaining silent on the issue being in compliance? The students are real good people and I admire their work and plan to do more with them. I would love to have the time to do research on GLBT immigrants and the problem our brothers and sisters face. We have already read some harrowing accounts on this blog. Thanks Keri for your comments on this blog. Hope you post sometime.
More than anything, Perez is practical. The only thing he cares about is votes, and undocumented immigrants can’t vote. Yeah, he’s okay when it comes to unions, but only because unions are just about the only social organization in the city that does anything approaching mass mobilization. Right now, undocumented, un-unionized immigrants have no organized power. But I believe that’s slowly changing. But until it does, Perez will always be inclined to make a deal with those who are higher-up in the government bureaucracy. Afterall, it’ll probably help his career by making those ever-important connections, like with Lieberman.
I’m gonna stick my neck out on this one, knowing that there are some out there that would love to have a good hack at it . . .
There are some really good reasons to criticize Perez’ response to the ICE raids. According to ICE protocol, it is supposed to contact local law enforcement before carrying out raids. We know that in New Haven the “notification” may have occurred minutes before the raids started, but it did happen.
So one possibility is that ICE is following its own rules and telling the HPD when it conducts a raid. If HPD knows then Perez knows or should know. Another possibility is that ICE is not following its own rules . . . in which case Perez ought to be raising hell with ICE about its failure to follow the rules and its violation of the sovereignty of the City of Hartford.
Perez’s comment that he doesn’t think the ICE raids are a big deal because there have “only” been two is unacceptable, especially since there is every reason to believe that the raids will continue and escalate wherever politicians and the people tolerate them.
That said, blaming Perez for the so-called Hartford Pilot Program is just factually wrong. The Pilot Program was ICE’s decision that it would detain people as soon as a judge issued an order of deportation, and reflected a change from the previous widespread practice of allowing an immigrant to go home, get their affairs in order, and report for deportation OR file a legal appeal of the judge’s ruling.
There is nothing about the Hartford Pilot Program that would have required ICE to contact anyone in city government or state government. It was conducted on federal premises by federal officials enforcing federal law. One of the first victims of the change was a Cameroon citizen named Richard Sitcha who was denied asylum and jailed. For more on Richard see this piece written in April 2007 about his 3.5 years in jail: http://www.greenfieldoptimist.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=26
There is a compelling need for a movement to oppose the ICE raids AND to apply pressure to Mayor Perez and the elected officals of other Connecticut towns around their collaboration with / toleration of ICE. Communities can’t close their doors to the feds but they can make the feds follow the rules to the letter and raise holy hell when they don’t. That’s why ICE doesn’t want to conduct operations in New Haven — it’s a huge hassle and its easier to detain people in the state prisons, probation offices, federal buildings and “cooperative” cities like Danbury.
So there are strong, factually sound reasons to criticize Perez. And there are things that we can and should demand of him and other municipal officials. It’s a mystery to me why the movement would want to spend time on conspiracy theories about the Hartford Pilot Program.
Peter
Thanks for the facts. I forgot that the Feds can operate on what they claim is “theirs” in our communities with out even a nod to local officals. I really think you should let those “out there who would love to take a hack” know about this posting and leaflet. The more information we get the better we become at calling it as it is and then take the correct action to make sure ICE doesn’t want to do business here in Hartford. Indeed Perez and all of the city council must be held accountable. At the meeting we attended candidate for city council on the Working Families Party, Dr. Larry Deutsch spoke out aginst ICE and told the crowd that the Party would soon have a position released on this matter.
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