| Diverse coalition of activists risk arrest to stop immigrant deportations, call for immediate end to detentions. Community members lock down for what has become a global human rights issue September 21, 2015, at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, more than 20 community members locked down to prevent the morning’s deportation buses from leaving the privately run facilities. The goal was not only to prevent the day’s immigrant deportations, but also to protest the criminalization and scapegoating of immigrants, highlight the moral injustice of privately-run for-profit detention centers and their collaboration with the local police departments creating a road to detention, and call for an end to all immigrant deportations and detentions. Banners spread next to protesters read “Climate Justice means Ending Deportations” “Queers Demand and End to Detention” and “Not1More”, speaking to how immigration is an environmental issue and issue of gender justice. “Climate change is resulting in worsening drought and super-storm conditions which displace millions across the globe. These climate refugees will number 200 million by 2050. World leaders and communities across the U.S. need to end these unjust deportations and commit to policies that stop climate change.” said Jill Mangaliman, one of the protesters locked down today and executive director of Got Green. Members of TWAC (Trans and/or Women Action Camp) carried signs protesting ICE’s controversial practice of placing transgender detainees in solitary confinement. While transgender women only make up 1 out of 500 detained immigrants in this country, they make up an alarming 1 out of every 5 confirmed sexual assaults in immigration detention. Participants of the day’s blockade, which included Rising Tide Seattle, the Raging Grannies, and other groups fighting for climate justice, economic justice, reproductive justice, worker rights, and more, vow to keep returning to the detention center for future actions as long as unjust detentions and deportations continue. Watch clips here! http://notonemoredeportation.com/2015/09/21/Tacoma Spread the word & share! “I’m here to end deportations because I want a world where families can stay together and people be treated humanely . I have family and friends impacted by this unhealthy, violent system of detaining and disposing of communities in the name of profits. Then from super typhoon Haiyan to Hurricane Katrina, to the wildfires and drought here and around the world, people of color are bearing the brunt of environmental racism and displacement from their homes. I want to see justice for all the migrants who have been forced to migrate because of the damage to their homelands caused by this destructive economy. Privatization, market-based solutions are false solutions! Climate justice means ending deportations and detentions.” – Jill Mangaliman | |
| “As a queer Xicano of Mexican diaspora and a child of an immigrant, I feel personally connected to the importance of stopping and ending detentions. Stopping detentions is queer and gender justice because there are so many trans and queer people who are detained who experience transphobic and homophobic targeting within the system and who aren’t getting proper/gender affirming care. No one should be detained and no one is illegal.” – Yecelica Valdiva | |
| “I’m participating in this action for my mom who is undocumented, and for all the children of undocumented parents that are separated from their families because of this unjust system. “ -Josefina Mora | |
| “I decided to do another direct action to stop detentions and deportation with the possibility of risking arrest and deportation because I believe the federal and local authorities continue cooperating to criminalize our communities of color.While we are here outside organizing to bring light to this violation of human rights, this private prison is at capacity, thousands of people are there waiting to be deported, separated from their loved ones, living infra-humane conditions just so Geo corporation can make more profits and ICE meets their daily quota.We have to end this corruption and it has to end now!” – Maru Mora Vilalpando | |
| “I am participating in this action because I want to support the movement to end deportations. We don’t need borders or prisons. Our action is one small part of a dynamic, growing movement to stop the violence of immigration enforcement.” – Dean Spade | |
| “I am doing this work because we need to understand why people migrate in the first place. Everything is connected. Everything. Environmental justice is connected to food justice is connected to reproductive justice, racial justice, gender justice is connected to immigrant rights. ” – Elizabeth Ortega | |
| “I am risking arrest as a Jew, whose family has survived the horrors of being targets of the state. I am alive today because of immigration, and therefore I cannot in good conscious be idle while this country, and corporations like Geo Group, profit from the targeting, detention, and deportation of people in our community.” – Ross Kirshenbaum | |
| “I’m participating in the Deportation Resistance because my identity grants me the privilege to avoid being targeted for an ignorant kind of xenophobia that is maintained by hatred.” – Emanuel da Silva | |
| “I am very concerned with how we are treating immigrants in this country and am here to bring attention to the plight of those who are being separated from their families. My grandparents came to this country from Eastern Europe without documents and were treated well. I am ashamed that this is happening in my country.” – Cynthia Linet | |
| “We are engaging in a powerful action against a violent system – it is the same government that is responsible for displacing communities around the world (via economic and military policy) and then criminalizing them when entering U.S. borders. And as a white citizen committed to racial justice, I’m hopeful my participation in this action will inspire more white people to join the multiracial, undocumented-led movement for migrant justice.” – Sean O’Neill | |
| “I am participating in this demonstration and risking arrest to demand an end to immigrant detention and deportations. No one is illegal and no one should be criminalized for migrating. I’m showing up to call for justice and to honor the dignity of everyone impacted by our cruel immigration system.” – Jenny McIntosh | |
| “I’m here in solidarity with the Northwest Detention Center because deportation is part of a larger system of oppression built to remove valuable lives of color from the community. Deportation is racist. Drop the borders.” – Max Black | |
| “I’m here with Twac (Trans and/or Women Action Camp) locking down in solidarity with the Northwest Detention Center Resistance. I’m here in solidarity with the movement to abolish detention centers and end deportations. “ – Sage Ridenour | |
| “I am taking part in this work to support all the organizing being down, tirelessly and passionately, by migrants and their supporters across the land. Migrant justice now! Let’s end the cruel fiction of borders, let’s end incarceration and deportation, let’s make a more just and open world!” – Joe Hiller | |
| “I am participating in this action to remind the detainees that they are not alone. That they have strangers and friends on the outside that still care about their lives and their families, and are outraged by the injustices that they face.” – Hollis Proffitt |
