The first week of the new year brought hope and cheer for some. But for many Southern immigrant communities, it brought fear.
News of the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to conduct immigrant deportation raids at the outset of 2016 circulated just before the Christmas holiday, and the first raids got underway last weekend. They are part of the Obama administration’s efforts to stem a wave of women and children who have arrived in the U.S. since 2014, many fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and other Latin American countries. Officials said the raids target those whose asylum claims have been denied and who now face deportation orders.
On Monday, January 4, DHS confirmed that 121 people – primarily in Texas, North Carolina and Georgia – had been detained. Among the communities where raids were reported were Norcross and the greater Atlanta area in Georgia and Dallas.
In Georgia, where immigrant rights organizations received several calls about raids, children as young as 4 were reportedly detained. The actions drew condemnation from immigrant communities and advocates.
“It is inhumane,” Rosa Vargas Morales told The Guardian. Vargas Morales left Guatemala and came to Georgia in 2014. She was detained over the weekend with her 17-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
“How can you put an 11-year-old through this? It’s going to leave a mark on her life forever,” Vargas Morales said.
Immigrant advocates sharply criticized the decision to conduct raids on vulnerable women and deport them back to the dangerous countries they fled.
“Since when have American values had anything to do with raiding homes to pick up women and young children and further traumatizing them?” said Greg Chen with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “DHS needs to stop calling these families lawbreakers and start treating them with the kind of care and compassion America has always given to those fleeing persecution and violence.”
Immigrant rights supporters sprang into action to protect communities and fight back. An online petition calling on the president to end the raids has garnered over 35,000 signatures. Groups are also circulating “Know Your Rights” materials advising people not to open the door to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials unless they have a warrant and not to say or sign anything without a lawyer. Faith institutions involved in the recently revived Sanctuary Movement pledged to offer a refuge of last resort to protect people from deportation.
Meanwhile, legal advocacy groups have stepped in to help detained families facing imminent deportations. Studies have shown that legal representation is the most important determinant in whether asylum is granted, but lack of access to sound legal counsel has been a major issue. On Tuesday, January 5, an immigration court blocked the deportation of four families who had been detained in the raids to give them time to appeal their asylum cases.
“The mothers we have heard from were victims of fraudulent lawyers,” said Jonathan Ryan, director of the San Antonio-based legal advocacy group RAICES. “They have legal rights in this country and, by ICE now violating those rights, they have even more legal options available to them.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy