Democracy Now!
How Local Policing Serves as an “Automatic Alert System” For ICE
“Massive #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations across the U.S. are bringing thousands of people into the streets, where advocates say undcoumented immigrants may face the presence of Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials. Last week a viral video showed ICE agents working with New York police to detain protesters at a George Floyd rally. Mizue Aizeki, deputy director at the Immigrant Defense Project, says ICE embedding with local law enforcement across the country goes back at least 10 years. “Now almost every fingerprint taken at a police precinct serves as an automatic alert system to ICE,” Aizeki tells Democracy Now! For many Latinx and undocumented people, the protests are an opportunity “to be out in the streets advocating, building that solidarity” with Black communities, says immigrant justice advocate Sandra Castro Solis, and ICE is seizing upon the protests as sensitive locations to target people.”
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