Truthdig
Terrorizing the Vulnerable
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/terrorizing_the_vulnerable_20170426/
Posted on Apr 26, 2017
By Chris Hedges
Make the Road New Jerseyan organization that advocates for immigrant and
working-class communitiesprotests the crackdown on immigrants earlier this
year in Elizabeth, N.J. (Carlos Castaneda / Make the Road New Jersey)
ELIZABETH, N.J.Edison, 50, an undocumented man from Uruguay, wraps his
knuckles against the basement wall of the row house as if it is a front
door.
Who is it? a 44-year-old Salvadoran immigrant named Antonio asks in
Spanish.
La migra, Edison says, using the Spanish slang for the Border Patrol and
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Is Antonio inside?
What do you want? Antonio asks.
We want to speak with you, says Edison, who like everyone else in the
basement asked me not to use his or her last name. Open the door.
Did I commit a crime? Antonio asks.
We have a warrant for your arrest, Edison says.
Slide it under the door, Antonio says.
Sara Cullinane, a lawyer with Make the Road New Jersey
(http://www.maketheroadnj.org/ ;) , an organization that assists the
undocumented, interrupts the skit. She looks around at the 16 undocumented
people, including children, seated on folding chairs. Dangling from the
basement ceiling are blue streamers left over from a childs birthday party.
What are the three things you look for? she asks the group.
Is the document signed by a judge, several people say.
How do you spell judge in English, she asks.
The group dutifully spells out j-u-d-g-e in Spanish.
If it is not signed by a judge do you open the door? she asks.
No, the group answers.
What next? she asks.
See if it is a judicial warrant, a woman says.
See if the name on the paper is correct, Carlos, 30, says.
What should Antonio do? the lawyer asks.
Keep the door closed, the group says. And dont sign anything.
You have no obligation to tell them what country you are from, the lawyer
adds in Spanish. Tell them you will not speak to them until you contact a
lawyer. They may try and use tricks to get inside. They may ask to see your
passport. They may ask to look in the house to see if it is secure. They may
ask who else lives there. They may ask if you are legal or illegal. If they
do not have a search warrant or an arrest warrant signed by a judge, do not
let them in. And dont answer their questions.
If Antonio is arrested does he lose his rights? she asks.
No! the group says.
Even if you have DACA
(http://undocu.berkeley.edu/legal-support-overview/what-is-daca/) [Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals] you dont have to say anything, the lawyer
says. They are taking DACA kids too.
The acceleration of arrests
(http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politics/immigration-arrests-rise/) by the
Trump administration among the estimated 11 million undocumented people in
the United States is spreading panic throughout communities such as
Elizabeth, where at least half of the population is foreign-born. Elizabeth
police officers in February joined ICE agents in raiding a popular small
business in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest a woman, who at the time was
there with her two small children. The February raid, especially because of
the participation by the police, along with the call by the Trump
administration for widespread deportations, has radically reconfigured life
in this depressed New Jersey city outside of New York City, as it has in
many other immigrant communities.
Undocumented parents of U.S. citizens are signing power-of-attorney papers
so that if they are seized by ICE agents someone will have the legal
authority to care for the children they leave behind. Businesses in
immigrant communities have seen a precipitous drop in sales as families
hoard what little money they have so they will have some resources if they
are deported. Employers who hire the undocumented often abuse workers,
including through wage theft, knowing that their employees will not report
them. Undocumented people who witness criminal activity or are victims of
crime usually refuse to go to the police. Those who drive do so without
insurance, a drivers license or registration, and no one carries foreign
passports or papers that can identify them as noncitizens. Landlords are
extorting higher rents. And some parents, fearful of taking their children
to school or of having undocumented children in school, are keeping their
sons and daughters home. Day care centers have experienced a drop in
enrollment. Police, in open acts of racial profiling, randomly pull over
drivers who appear to be Latino. And ICE raids routinely sweep up people
whose names never appeared on deportation orders. ICE, for example, arrested
a young woman last week with no criminal record in a sweep of Elizabeths
busiest immigrant business district.
People are being picked up when they show up to criminal court or municipal
court in New York City, said Cullinane. They are being picked up in front
of their homes when they leave for work. When ICE has administrative
warrants, not judicial warrants, they know they cannot go inside. They use
subterfuge. They wear plain clothes and drive in unmarked cars and carry a
picture of the person they want. ICE agents under Donald Trump can arrest
people if they are only suspected of having engaged in criminal activity, no
matter how minor. I have never seen this level of fear. [Editors note: An
administrative warrant in an immigration case, signed by an ICE agent, names
a person as a target for possible arrest and deportation. A judicial warrant
in an immigration case, signed by a judge, is a court document that
indicates due process has been followed. Click here
(https://longislandwins.com/issues/difference-judicial-warrant-administrativ
e-warrant-used-ice/ ) to read more about the differences.]
Groups of the undocumented have formed Los Comités de Defensa del
BarrioCommittees for the Defense of the Communitysuch as this one in
Elizabeth. These committees hold underground meetings to teach people how to
protect themselves, attempt to film ICE raids with phones, raise funds for
legal services, perform skits to prepare people for encounters with ICE and
the police, appeal to churches and cities to sign on to the sanctuary
movement, hold demonstrations, use social media to monitor ICE movements and
send out alerts about the latest raids, arrests and deportations.
Rosana, 53, is from Mexico and has lived in the United States for 27 years.
She has two children. She works as a cleaner at banks.
I am afraid to go outside, Rosana says. I go to work. I buy food. But,
otherwise, I stay in the house. My husband is the same. He works as a night
dispatcher for a taxi company in New York City. He sees ICE agents on the
train. My children are terrified they will come home from school and one or
both of us will not be here. This campaign is going to have huge economic
and social consequences across the country. It will lead to the breakdown of
the rule of law in many communities. No one will go to court. No one will go
to the police. No one will buy anything. People are going underground.
Parents wont even show up for their childrens soccer games.
Trump cant do anything he wants, Rosana says to the group. There are
laws here. There is the Congress and the courts. They will defend us. Just
because you do not have papers does not mean you do not have rights. In this
country everyone has rights.
Still, people are afraid to come to these meetings, Antonio says. They
fear that la migra will raid the meeting and take everyone. This is why a
lot of people will not go to protests.
If we do not overcome our fear we will not be able to exert any pressure,
says Carlos. We need to be educated. We need to have faith we can do
something.
The group members discuss a petition drive calling for Elizabeth to be a
sanctuary city. They discuss joining May Day protests. They talk about
mounting a campaign to obtain drivers licenses.
What will we do in June? asks Rosana.
If we survive May we can talk about June, Carlos answers.
The meeting closes with the group singing the protest song No Nos Moveran
[We Shall Not Be Moved].
No, no, no, no nos moveran!
No, no, no nos moveran!
Como un arbol firme junto al rio
No nos moveran
Unidos en la lucha, no nos moveran
Unidos en la lucha, no nos moveran
Como un arbol firme junto al rio
No nos moveran.
[Click here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKopB66ujuQ ;) to hear Joan
Baez perform the song in concert. To see a translation of one version of the
song, click here
(https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/media/Scott/SONGLYRICSWITHTRA
NSLATIONS(COMBINED).pdf) ; No Nos Moveran is the 10th song from the top.]
I walk outside and sit on the front steps afterward with a father who
because he has a pending asylum case asked that I not use even his first
name. With us are his 9-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter. His own
father, like thousands of other Salvadorans, disappeared during the civil
war in the 1980s. His wife and daughter, after paying $6,000 to smugglers,
were brought over the Mexican border. The man and his son, after being
robbed of $6,000 by a smuggler, paid another one the same amount and crossed
into the United States. The family was captured by the Border Patrol. They
are free pending applications for asylum; the mother was forced to wear an
electronic ankle monitor for several months.
We had a food stall in the market [back in El Salvador], he said. The
gangs demanded we pay $3,000. I did not pay this money. They threatened to
kill me and rape my daughter. We sold all we had and fled.
He takes out his phone and shows me a picture of his former food stall.
We only want to live in peace, he said, work, have a home, be a family.
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