Thread: The Chicago pol/ICE connection

The Chicago pol/ICE connection
socialistworker.org/2008/08/12/chicago-police-ICE-connection">socialistworker.org/2008/08/12/chicago-police-ICE-connection

Chicago is supposed to be a sanctuary city for immigrants, but the local police and federal immigration authorities have other ideas, report Sarah Macaraeg and Nikolai Diaz.

August 12, 2008

CHALLENGING THE gap between words and deeds in the city of Chicago's immigrant sanctuary policy, immigrant rights activists picketed City Hall August 5 as hearings were held on the Chicago police's collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Since 1985, city employees have been prohibited from enforcing federal immigration laws via an executive order issued by then-Mayor Harold Washington, later affirmed by the current mayor, Richard Daley. The policy was subsequently turned into law in 2006.

Despite this, however, at least 59 Latino residents have been placed in jail for months on "immigration hold" by ICE--after being initially stopped by the Chicago Police Department (CPD).

Chanting "We are humans, not aliens" and carrying signs demanding "Free our families from ICE," family members of those detained, plus activists from the March 10 Movement, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and International Socialist Organization marched prior to City Council hearings on police-migra connection.

"We're doing this to be vigilant on the immigrant families who are under attack from the police, who are illegally working with immigration," said Rev. José Landaverde, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission.

The police-ICE relationship, often referred to as the "poli-migra" by activists, has torn apart the lives of dozens of Latinos, some who have now been in jail for over five months after being stopped for traffic violations or booked on misdemeanors.

As the testimony showed, the poli-migra often trumped up charges to utilize loopholes in the sanctuary law, which allows for notifying ICE with arrests on felony charges, but not misdemeanors.

As Jorge Mújica, an activist with the March 10 Movement, explained at the hearing:

“We have uncovered cases of harsh accusations, such as a DUI to a person who was not driving a vehicle, and "criminal trespass" to a worker after a gate was opened to him to enter a workplace. These kind of accusations imply that an immigrant who would have been freed on a $100 bond at the police station ends up instead in Cook County jail, where bonds are not accepted once ICE learns they are non-citizens.â€

Sanctuary cities are illegal....illegal aliens are iILLEGAL and breaking the law..

These people are getting to be too much, these kind of activity's and refusing to enforce the laws when it comes to people who have crossed our border illegally has led them into believing they have a right to be in this country and we have no right to enforce our laws..
BS, arrest and deport them.

"We're doing this to be vigilant on the immigrant families who are under attack from the police, who are illegally working with immigration," said Rev. José Landaverde, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission.

Say WHAT?!?! Is he that stupid???

How can the police be "illegally" working with ICE? Both the police and ICE are legal in this country. Illegal aliens are not DUH! Sanctuary cities aren't legal either.