Call President Obama and Congress Demand an End to ICE Raids & Abuses

Dear NNIRR members, partners, allies & friends,

Please call President Obama and your Representative and two Senators to denounce the brutal ICE raid against immigrant workers that took place yesterday in Bellingham , Washington (see background information below).

Call (202) 456-1414 and tell President Obama:

Ø The ICE raid yesterday in Washington state violates the rights of immigrant workers, harms the economy and makes our communities vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

Ø You must end all raids and suspend all detentions and deportations.

Ø Restore and protect our Constitutional rights

Ø Please investigate ICE abuses and end the inhumane treatment immigrants are suffering in detention and deportation.

You can also send fax President Obama at: (202) 456-2461. 

Call (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Representative’s and Senators’ offices, tell them:

Ø The ICE raid yesterday in Washington state violates the rights of immigrant workers, harms the economy and makes our communities vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

Ø End all raids and suspend all detentions and deportations.

Ø Restore and protect our Constitutional rights

Ø You must hold hearings to investigate ICE abuses and end the inhumane treatment immigrants are suffering in detention and deportation.

You can also get full contact information for your Congressional delegation at:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Please take action today!

For more talking points and messages to our elected officials, see NNIRR’s letter with signatures to President Barack Obama at www.nnirr.org

BACKGROUND: ICE Raid & Immigrant Protest Brutal Treatment in Detention

ICE Raid in Bellingham , WA

Yesterday morning, the Department of Homeland Security sent some 75 agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Yamato Engine Specialist plant in Bellingham Washington . With a typical overwhelming show of force, the ICE agents arrived in SUVs accompanied by buses and a hovering helicopter.

The ICE agents, dressed in riot gear and heavily armed, invaded the plant and terrorized all. ICE agents interviewed all the workers and arrested 28 for immigration status. ICE agents handcuffed the immigrant workers and chained together at the ankles before boarding them on buses. The immigrant workers are now in detention.

Immigrant Prisoners Rebel against Inhumane Treatment and Abuses

Also, in January, immigrants serving sentences for being undocumented or deportable in the Reeves County Detention Facility Complex, in Pecos , Texas , began a protest after prison officials refused to take a gravely ill prisoner out of solitary confinement to the hospital.

The protest began after a group of immigrant prisoners attempted to meet with the detention facility’s authorities, demanding that a gravely ill detainee be released from solitary confinement and be taken immediately to a hospital. The prison authorities refused to listen and did not take action. The detainees responded by protesting after being ignored.

After the detainees began a spontaneous protest, a melee ensued. A fire broke out during the protest and guards immediately left the premises, locking in the prisoners behind. Some prisoners broke windows to get to other detainees who were choking and fainting, overcome by the smoke.

Then the guards got into SWAT vehicles (or some type of armored vehicle described as a “tortuga,” a turtle, by an inmate) and began firing teargas and rubber bullets at the prisoners who had been abandoned in the facility that was on fire.

Afterwards, the prison guards forced the immigrant inmates to stay outdoors in the prison facility yard on Saturday night. Since then, they have only been fed once a day; they have little or no water and have only three restroom facilities for almost 3,000 prisoners.

The prison authorities only let the inmates back into the facilities after a week. But the prisoners are being forced back into a smoke-damaged building contaminated with carbon monoxide from the fire. The facility now has little or no ventilation since windows have been boarded up.

The Geo Group already has more than 2,800 prisoners in a facility meant to hold 2,400 in Pecos .