“Let Our Children Go” Demonstration at Downtown San Francisco ICE Building
July 6, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On Monday, June 30, over 60 people demonstrated in front of the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Office in downtown San Francisco. There was a visible contingent of Department of Homeland Security cops guarding the entrance while demonstrators lined up along the sidewalk. This demonstration was called by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network Bay Area (SMIN) to oppose the U.S. actions of incarcerating (and deporting) refugee children and mothers who’ve recently crossed the border, desperately escaping the hell that the U.S. has been part of creating in their home countries (especially Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala). Many have been suffering in crowded concentration camp-like conditions in Texas.
Large banners reading “Let Our Children Go” and “No More Deportations” were displayed at the side of the building as several speakers (mostly women) came to the bullhorn, calling attention to the torturous conditions that these children are being subjected to in these military prison camps.
Rev. Deborah Lee spoke for the Interfaith Council for Immigrant Rights. Debra Sweet spoke for World Cant Wait, which had also endorsed the demonstration. There were important statements from the Stop Mass Incarceration Network calling for a month of actions in October “in resistance to mass incarceration, police terror, repression and the criminalization of a generation.” Other groups participating and/or endorsing were Veterans for Peace, Radical Women, School of the Americas Watch (Hayward), Southern Alameda Peace and Justice Coalition, and Causa Justa/Just Cause.
There were women from Mujeres Unidas y Activas, which has been prominent in Oakland not only in fighting attacks against immigrants, but also taking part in such actions as Trayvon Martin Day. Four women from La Colectiva de Mujeres, a day-laborers organization. spoke some bitter reality to what Obama’s “immigration reform” is all about. One woman said, “We live in constant terror from this system. American Dream??? Minimum wage in Mexico is $7 a day, and in El Salvador it’s $4 a day! We came here just to eat a meal and live!”
The demonstration was covered by a mainstream TV as well as Spanish language media such as Telemundo, Univision, and papers such as El Tecolote.
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