San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Reflections on A Day Without Immigrants

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News roundup logoBy Doug Porter

A week of immigration roundups by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has triggered a wave of one-day strikes impacting business and schools in cities throughout the United States. 

Eyewitness reports from around the country belie the administration’s assurances that enforcement efforts are aimed at criminal offenders. Deportation forces are harassing legal residents and targeting DACA-recipients, domestic violence survivors, and those seeking shelter from cold weather at a church. 

Thus far, San Diego seems to have been spared, according to local advocates. People are afraid, nonetheless.

Life in a Mixed-Status Family

Locally, businessman Mark Lane, who recently appeared in a CNN Anderson Cooper 360 story because his wife Judy has been unable to gain citizenship, described –via a Facebook post– what life is like for his family:

Mark Lane being interviewed. Via Facebook

I want to share a day in the life of a mixed status family. This is regular and normal for us, but today … friends of mine…{names retracted} were over here and witnessed what has become normal to us. Their reaction and how it affected them is the reason I decided to share. This is what the policies of hate are doing to families across this country. We are not the only ones facing this, there are thousands of families.

Today, Judi was out doing something with a friend, so I picked up the kids at school, this immediately causes anxiety with them, as they are wondering if she has been deported.

They immediately ask me “Where’s Mom?”. So I explain to them what she is doing and she’ll be home later. This calms them a bit, but they are still wary. Holly and Paul came over and we are out in the garage talking. My 6-year-old who is normally going 100 mph is quietly clinging to my leg, worried. My 7-year-old keeps coming out into the garage and asking, “where’s mom?”, “when is mom coming home?” “Why isn’t mom home yet?”. They are worried, they are sad, they are scared, they are anxious.

They are only 6 and 7 years old. These 2 little ones should be playing, laughing, having fun. Instead, they will be doing this for the rest of the afternoon, until Judi walks through the door. Donald Trump’s hate filled rhetoric, hate filled policies are destroying families. They are causing unnecessary emotional stress on children, husbands, wives.

This is not what the United States of America stands for. This process for my wife and I should have been easy, my children should not have to spend their time with this much anxiety.

I urge everyone who reads this to please be active, be empathetic, participate. Resist hate, protect our families, persist in making our country the welcoming beacon it has always been.

My 6 and 7 year old have not eaten since they came home from school today, they usually eat as soon as they get home, their eyes are watery, their faces show fear. I cannot hug or explain it away for them.

The only thing that will fix them is when Judi walks through the door and they know that their mom is home for another day. This is our reality, this is the reality of thousands of families across the country today.

This is where we have allowed this regime to take us as a country. It has become so normal for us, that I surprised and moved by the reactions of Holly and Paul when I explained to them what was going on. What happens going forward, remember, our children are watching us, your children are watching you. What will you do? What you do, will be their life’s template?

A Day in Wisconsin

immigrants

Wisconsin marcher, Via Twitter

An organic movement, driven by social media and word-of-mouth has led to Day Without An Immigrant actions in other parts of the country. On Wednesday, thousands of Latinos and supporters from at least 12 cities across Wisconsin traveled by bus to Milwaukee to protest plans by the Milwaukee County Sheriff to assist ICE  in tracking down undocumented immigrants. Supporters were also asked to stay away from work and school, close businesses, and avoid purchases.

From NBC News:

“Trump wants to paint immigrants as something we should be afraid of; that it is something bad,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the director of Voces de la Frontera. “When people do this general, wide strike what they show is that on the contrary immigrants are lifting up this economy and when they withhold their contributions we see a decline.”

Big Name Restaurants Close

Many popular restaurants in the Washington DC area, including those operated by Chef Jose Andres, closed on Thursday.

From Fusion:

According to Washingtonian magazine, a number of local restaurants and other businesses have begun bracing for a national strike on February 16, in which immigrants—particularly those from Latinx communities—have been urged to stay home from work. The grassroots protest has seemingly been organized by word of mouth and across Latinx social media channels.

“One of our delivery men who’s Latino told our kitchen about it, and then it started spreading from there,” Rose Previte, owner of DC’s Compass Rose restaurant, told Washingtonian. “In the kitchen, all but the chef and one line cook are immigrants and asked if they could participate. “My staff was like, ‘We feel this is something we have to do.’ They felt really strongly about it. I was like, ‘Okay, absolutely.’”

From The Washington Post:

Celebrity chef José Andrés, an immigrant from Spain, announced on Twitter that he will be closing some of his restaurants in the region because of the boycott — three Jaleo restaurants, Zaytinya and Oyamel. Andrés backed out of a contract in 2015 with Trump to open a restaurant inside D.C.’s Trump International Hotel after the then-presidential candidate called undocumented Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists.” The two are still in the middle of a legal battle.

Busboys and Poets owner Andy Shallal, an Iraqi immigrant and progressive activist, will also shut all six of the restaurants throughout the region. He said the closures will be a “huge financial hit,” but added that “it’s an important” stance to take. All of his full-time and part-time employees have paid time off, and Shallal said they will be using that paid time on Thursday and have been supportive of his decision to close the restaurants.

“I realized I’m an immigrant too, and it is important for me to take that stand,” Shallal said. “I am in a position of power, and I realize that, and I am able to do this and I can be in solidarity with my staff.”

Cause and Effect

This week’s protests are a direct result of deportation forces stepping up their activities.

From the Daily Beast, published last Friday:

Over the last five days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted what they call an “enforcement surge” in the Los Angeles area, arresting more than 160 undocumented immigrants. Immigrants’ rights groups and lawyers told The Daily Beast that ICE also increased its enforcement activities—including, in some cases, in apartment buildings—in a number of cities around the country, including Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Austin.

ICE officials and the White House say this is normal. Activists, lawyers, and members of Congress say it’s a major change—and likely just the beginning.

“The muscle to do this kind of stuff is here—it’s just that the leash has been taken off,” said Sarah Owings, an immigration attorney in Atlanta. “They’re out and they’re hunting.”

The political motivation behind these deportation raids is described by Linda Greenhouse, writing in the New York Times:

Portland restuarant closed: No employees. Via Twitter

Clearly, with President Trump’s executive orders having expanded the category of immigrants deemed worth pursuing and deporting, the gloves are off. There’s been plenty of news coverage of this development, but few reminders of the context in which the pursuers have been freed from previous restraints.

So it’s worth noting that the union representing some 5,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents actually endorsed Mr. Trump in September, the first time the union endorsed a candidate for president. In an inflammatory statement posted on the Trump campaign’s website, Chris Crane, president of the union, the National ICE Council, complained that under President Obama, “our officers are prevented from enforcing the most basic immigration laws.” The statement went on to say that while Mr. Trump had pledged in a meeting to “support ICE officers, our nation’s laws and our members,” Hillary Clinton’s immigration plan was “total amnesty plus open borders.”

That everything in that statement except for the reference to Mr. Trump was untrue is not the point. (Far from failing to enforce the law, the Obama administration deported more than 400,000 unauthorized immigrants a year, and Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival endorsed neither total amnesty nor open borders.) Rather, the statement is evidence of how openly these law enforcement officers have been chafing at the bit to do their jobs as they please.

As They Please, Explained

The approach now being pursued by the Trump Administration has cast a wide net and is an aggressive and unforgiving approach to immigration enforcement. Perhaps the most egregious example of just how really mean-spirited ICE agents are came from El Paso, Texas, as reported at Think Progress:

Federal immigration agents arrested an undocumented transgender woman in Texas last week just moments after she obtained a protective order against her alleged abuser — and her abuser may have tipped off the agents.

Immigration lawyers say this signals a disturbing new precedent for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which is not supposed to solely use information provided by an abusive partner to make decisions about whether to detain someone. They are concerned this case will make undocumented domestic violence victims across the country too scared to come forward and seek protection against their abusers.

According to reporting from the El Paso Times, documents filed on Friday state the woman went to the El Paso County Courthouse on February 9 to seek a protective order against her boyfriend. They also reveal that someone contacted authorities on February 2 to inform them the woman had filed this order and was staying at a domestic violence shelter.

NBC News in Washington DC reported on an ICE sweep targeting people leaving a hypothermia shelter at Rising Hope Mission Church on Russell Road in Alexandria, Virginia.

The group of men had left the shelter about 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 8 and crossed the street when the ICE agents ordered them to stand against a brick wall.

Ramirez said the agents questioned all of them and scanned their fingers to find out if they had criminal backgrounds. Agents quickly cleared Ramirez, who has a green card, he said.

But he and other witnesses told News4 that about six Latino men were arrested and taken away in two vans that pulled up to the area where they had been stopped.

A Reminder…

March in Solidarity with Immigrants, San Diego/
Immigrants Make America Great San Diego

Saturday, February 18, 11am
County Building
1600 Pacific Highway
Solidarity Info / America Great Info

There were originally two events scheduled for February 18 (more are occurring nationally). Each had over a thousand RSVPs on Facebook. Wisely, they have now merged.

And in Other News:

Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.

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Doug Porter

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

Comments

  1. Thanks for putting the anguish of Mark Lane and wife Judi and their kids atop your column today, Doug Porter; it helps make heartbreakingly clear how the shotgun justice being administered by Trump’s executive order is wounding real people who’ve done no harm. Republicans talk about family values (as well as about the value of small businesses, the tyranny of large government, morals in public life and on and on) but they’re making victims of innocent folk and failing to take seriously the words coming out of their own mouthes. You’ve been doing a whole lot to help expose the damage being done by “the party of Lincoln.” We can all hope the country is coming to its senses, again.

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