Fatal beating of Mexican sparks anti-ICE nationwide protests
By Cheryl LaBash

Published Aug 29, 2008 8:15 PM
On Aug. 22 demonstrations in many U.S. cities demanded an immediate moratorium on raids, incarcerations, deportations and separation of immigrant families. The urgent call responded to the racist killing of 25-year-old Luis RamÃ*rez and plans by ICE/Homeland Security to dragnet half a million people in the next six months.


RamÃ*rez was beaten to death by three white high school football players in Shenandoah, Penn., near Hazelton, Penn., a town notorious for enacting virulent anti-immigrant laws. At the Aug. 18 arraignment for the accused killers, where the charges were reduced from first degree to third degree murder, demonstrators gathered outside the Schuykill County, Penn., courthouse to demand justice for the slain Mexican immigrant.

Teresa Gutierrez, a leader of the May 1 Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights, who traveled from New York City, told WNEP-TV, “No one has the right to be judge, jury and executioner on the streets of this country, no matter the legal status of any Latino or other immigrant.â€