Thread: Immigration groups get ready to fight ICE raids

WASHINGTON - Reeling from work-site raids that have jailed thousands of undocumented workers, immigration organizations are quietly assembling informal networks to gather advance information about federal enforcement operations and to help locals and laborers prepare.
Students, union officials, waiters and other workers are among those volunteering to call in tips about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents checking into hotels or renting local facilities, the sudden appearance of out-of-town cars, or a sudden surge of action at the local courthouse.
''Is ICE going to tell us when they're coming? What they're doing? No," said Socorro Leos, a community organizer for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, or MIRA. ''You have to be working with the grass roots, on the ground, training them to be alert, to be very, very conscious, to open their eyes and senses. Anything they see that is a different color, they should report."
The spontaneous development of these intelligence networks is directly linked to the ambitious scale of recent ICE raids, which require hundreds of agents, vehicles and massive infrastructure.
''These are huge paramilitary operations," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. ''They use helicopters, jeeps, mobile homes for processing people. They have to have jail space lined up. It's very hard to do that in secrecy."
Still, ICE raids rely on the element of surprise, and advance detection to an extent can temper the government's advantage.
However, advocates say they do not use advance warning to stop a raid or urge workers to flee. Instead, they try to soften the blow, likening the significance of a raid to a natural disaster.
''We cannot tell people, 'Don't go to work,"' said Leos, adding that they cannot know with any certainty when or where ICE agents will appear.
Organizations hold ''know your rights" sessions and encourage workers to set up phone trees to pass along information. Activists arrange for legal help for those detained and make sure local court-appointed lawyers have access to experts who can explain the complexities of immigration law.
The groups also ensure that food pantries are stocked, that caregivers are ready for any children left stranded or unattended and that funds are collected for families that lose their bread-winner.
The effort has parallels to the sanctuary movement of the 1980s, when churches brought Central American refugees to the U.S. to protect them from political violence. More recently, churches have offered to shelter to illegal immigrants facing deportation.
''The sanctuary movement is certainly an appropriate precedent" to the intelligence gathering, said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. ''Both arose out of a sense that the immigration law and its enforcement are fundamentally unjust and illegitimate."
However, a spokeswoman for ICE said the advocates' efforts are misdirected.
''The work of advocacy groups is very important and while we appreciate their right to do so, we believe their efforts would better serve the public if they encouraged individuals to comply with the law rather than impede our efforts to enforce it," said Kelly Nantel, the spokeswoman.
Advocates for expanded immigration restrictions find the strategy appalling.
''This really is to make it as difficult as possible for ICE to do its job," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. ''The idea that this is just to soften the blow after the enforcement happens is just disingenuous."
In communities taut with fear about immigration raids, advocates try to vet the intelligence they're getting before launching preparations.
''You have to step back and say, 'Is this immigration or is this something else?"' said Diego Bonesatti, a community organizer in Melrose Park, Ill.
A routine traffic stop for a seat belt infraction could easily be misinterpreted, Bonesatti said. ''Because people are on edge, you have to have people check it out and verify."
Organizers also stressed the need to separate rumor from fact.
''Now if there are rumors of white vans, people won't go to church or school," said Julien Ross, director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. ''Rumors and panic easily spread. We want to make sure we don't say there's a raid when there isn't."
Even while organizers try to prepare, federal officials continue to arrest hundreds of workers, many of them living in the country illegally.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10469511

''This really is to make it as difficult as possible for ICE to do its job,"

Just remember that when you want justice done or laws enforced that benefit you........

I honestly don't care about the stress level of all these poor "immigrants".
It just goes to show that they knew they did something illegal by coming to this country without permission. Unfortunately, taxpayers will probably end up paying for their stress drugs.

Wouldn’t this be considered obstruction of justice?

Wouldn’t this be considered obstruction of justice?

Well.....that's what it used to mean.....Lord knows what it's changed to now.

Originally Posted by dragonfire

Wouldn’t this be considered obstruction of justice?

Only for legal American citizens.

Originally Posted by dragonfire

Wouldn’t this be considered obstruction of justice?

Good point!

Anything they see that is a different color, they should report.

I have to laugh. Now who is racist.

''You have to step back and say, 'Is this immigration or is this something else?"' said Diego Bonesatti, a community organizer in Melrose Park, Ill.

What else could it be Diego?
I think he needs a lesson on the difference between legal and illegal immigration.

Originally Posted by crazybird

Wouldn’t this be considered obstruction of justice?

Well.....that's what it used to mean.....Lord knows what it's changed to now.

I would like to know what advocate-per-capita ratio other modern countries have for illegal immigrants. We must have won the prize. These people seem to be so numerous they can start shaping long enacted enacted laws.

Has anybody here read David Horowitz's book: The Professors. ?? I would be curious to know your thoughts. Also, I recently read the 1889 Supreme Court decision in Chae Chan Ping V United States. Seems to say that states and localities cannot enact laws on immigration that contradict federal law. Don't sanctuary policies do just that? Has anyone else studied this?