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“You can do this the easy way or the hard way and you won’t want it to be the hard way.” The ICE agent yelled in Spanish through the locked door. Inside stood a terrified mother with her 8 year-old US citizen daughter clinging to her mom for her life, fearing her parents will be taken - or worse, her parents or she will be killed.
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Tom Wilson,
Canal Alliance Executive Director |
Variations of this scene were repeated again and again yesterday in the Canal neighborhood with ICE agents pounding and threatening through closed doors for 40 minutes and more. In the past year, hundreds of homes have been assaulted this very same way only in smaller early morning raids.
Agents came yesterday casually dressed, loaded with gear, in unmarked cars with tinted windows, moving in squadrons of three, and hitting apartment buildings with the force of an invading army. As a result, thousands of children were terrified - 200 stayed home from school because of the assault on their homes.
The fact that there is a neighborhood in Marin where this morning thousands of children are waking up in terror is unacceptable. We simply cannot allow this kind of violence to be impressed on our children. Many immigrant families have been victimized already in their home country and are now facing inexcusable violence here.
Let’s reform immigration laws tomorrow, but today let’s re-think how enforcement for a relatively minor infraction can be done so that children are not harmed. They are the victims of these outrageous raids, powerless and with the deepest fear a child can have.
I appeal to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, to our federal government, to local officials and to anyone who can help that we must find a way to enforce immigration laws without traumatizing children.
What you can do to help:
- Email or call local media and government officials to let them know you want ICE raids to stop.
- Help families who are affected by making a donation to the Emergency Fund at: Canal Alliance, 91 Larkspur Street, San Rafael, CA 4901 or 415 454-2640
- Access resources related to immigration.
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