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Persistence and
patience pays off. Response network attorneys and
organizers arrived first thing Friday morning to meet with the
detainees. However, attorneys were allowed to see only those
individuals for whom they already had names and were not allowed
to access other detainees despite the fact that the network had
faxed letters to the local ICE office informing it that we were
offering free legal consultations for all individuals detained
in the MSE operation.[3]
UNITE-HERE Local 11 and
CHIRLA organized a press conference at the federal building.
Community leaders denounced the MSE raid, which had been the
largest immigration enforcement raid in the Los Angeles area in
recent years. Throughout the day, relatives of detained workers
tried to post bond for them so they could be released. However,
they faced frustrating bureaucratic hurdles. They were sent
from one office to another and back to the first office, and
each time they were given different reasons for why their bond
could not be posted. At one point, ICE personnel decided that
they were going to close the office early, but network advocates
and individuals who had not yet been able to post bonds for
their detained relatives successfully pressured ICE staff to
reopen the office, only to see them try to close the office down
again. Finally, however, the ICE official who was supervising
the MSE operation agreed to ensure the release of all workers
whose bonds had been posted or whose relative or friend had
tried to post a bond but had been turned away by ICE.
After sitting outside the
federal building on the cold cement all evening waiting
anxiously for loved ones to be released, the detained MSE
workers’ relatives, friends, and advocates finally witnessed the
release of the last workers at about 2 a.m. As a result of the
pressure mounted by the families and the advocacy network, a day
after the raid two-thirds of all the MSE detainees had been
released either on their own recognizance or a $1,500 bond, or
wearing an electronic monitoring device. This was the first
major victory, given that after most raids, particularly those
in which Mexican nationals are detained, ICE rushes to remove
the detained workers from the U.S., often within 24 to 48 hours,
which means that usually they do not have the opportunity to
consult with an attorney or advocate before they are removed
from the country. The MSE workers who were released on
humanitarian grounds on the first night and many of those
released on Friday night were given appointments to return the
following week to be processed.
Resources that make a rapid
response possible:
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If your community does not
already have one, develop a rapid response network as soon
as possible. As part of this strategy, establish
relationships with local consulates in your area that will
be critical allies after a raid, especially because they can
help compile a list of all detainees.
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More information on preparing
to respond rapidly to a raid is available from the following
sources:
Lessons learned (for rapid
responders):
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Advocates should incorporate
information covering ICE’s new raids tactics, such as
segregating workers based on their immigration status, into
know-your-rights trainings and materials, to help workers be
more aware of their constitutional rights, including the
right to remain silent and not to answer questions about
nationality, and more confident about insisting that ICE
officers respect those rights during a raid.
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Advocates should document any
violations of ICE’s “Guidelines for Identifying Humanitarian
Concerns.” Having such a record will help your advocacy
efforts to obtain workers’ release, is important in the
event that you decide to bring legal challenges connected to
the raid and its aftermath, and can contribute to national
advocacy efforts.
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To obtain the release of as
many detained workers as possible, pressure and advocacy by
their relatives and community members is especially critical
within the first 48 hours after a raid.
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Reach out to consulates whose
nationals were affected by the raid. Consulates may be able
to identify detained nationals by name to assist with raid
response efforts.
Undifferentiated Use of Electronic Monitoring Devices
As immigrant rights
advocates, we argue strenuously for any alternative to detention
for noncitizens who are challenging government efforts to remove
them from the U.S. Our initial success in getting the majority
of detained MSE workers released on “humanitarian grounds” was
undermined when, in the week following their release, many of
them were required to wear electronic monitoring devices as a
condition of their release. In certain circumstances, these
devices are an important and satisfactory alternative to
detention. However, the way ICE used electronic monitoring
devices following the MSE raid is a case study in improper and
overbroad use of such devices.
Most problematically, the
devices were initially placed on every worker released on
humanitarian grounds after the raid. We were informed that this
initial decision to place monitors on all released workers
without regard to their individual circumstances was neither an
ICE-wide policy nor even a Los Angeles–wide policy, but a
decision made for this particular MSE operation.[4]
Disturbingly, ICE made no attempt to assess whether each of the
workers on whom bracelets were placed was an actual flight risk
— i.e., someone who should be monitored to ensure that he or she
would appear at subsequent ICE appointments and court hearings.
In fact, most of the workers on whom bracelets were placed were
initially released on their own recognizance, and the devices
were not placed on them until they attended subsequent
appointments with ICE. Had these workers actually been flight
risks, they would not have shown up for these appointments.
Worse, the basic screening questions that ICE officers asked the
workers during the raid did not include whether they had
preexisting medical conditions that could be exacerbated by the
electronic devices.
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