Aurora Protester Shot, Returns Almost Immediately to Continue Protesting
Welcome to our news segment: TL;DR of Immigration News, for when the news is Too Long and you Didn’t Read it.
This is a weekly collection of immigration-related news stories. These bite-size summaries will keep you up to date without overwhelming your inbox.
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Employee of Aurora ICE Processing Center arrested, accused of shooting Colorado protester
An employee of GEO Group, the private prison contractor for ICE, has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder after he shot a protester, Emma Landis, who was walking away from him. The shooting occurred at the GEO Group's Aurora CO ICE Processing Center. Ms Landis was part of a protest that blocked the entrance to the facility. During that action, Landis and another protester exchanged words with employees. As the protesters walked away, one of those employees retrieved a personal handgun from his car and fired a shot hitting Ms Landis in the foot. Remarkably undeterred, Ms Landis returned to protest as soon as she was released from the hospital.
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Venezuelan man becomes 22nd person to die in ICE custody this year
Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, a 45-year-old man from Venezuela, died on Monday morning while being transferred between detention facilities in Georgia, another victim of the Department of Homeland Security’s blatant neglect. This comes after a week in which ICE agents murdered three people: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, of Houston, Texas; Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero of Maine; and another man who was struck by a truck while fleeing a Florida ICE terror enforcement operation.
As with all of the over 70,000 people currently suffering in the for-profit gulag expanded by the Trump administration, Arenas-Silva was denied care for critical health problems. In fact, he was held at the Irwin County Detention Center, which is operated by LaSalle Corrections, Inc and has been so notorious for abuse that the Biden administration, no enemy of detention, closed it in 2021.
Despite the worsening political situation in Venezuela brought on by the US invasion earlier this year and the recent deadly earthquake there, there are no provisions for refuge for Venezuelan immigrants to the United States. Then-DHS secretary Kristi Noem ended Temporary Protected Status for them in 2025.
The cruelty of detention and the lack of safe harbor for those fleeing climate and political upheaval are all part of an archipelago of cruelty constructed and maintained by the current regime. Mourning and honoring its victims means fighting to abolish ICE.
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Tom Homan continues to do the job he was hired to do, which is to spout barely-concealed fascist rhetoric and repeat lies so often that people start to believe them. Asked about the fact that ICE officially ended traffic stops for one day before the President reversed the policy, Homan changed the subject to do his best to strike fear. Claiming that the ICE murders in the last two weeks were caused by the “Dems,” he followed up with, “There’s still going to be more bloodshed” unless the Democrats “shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted.”
Leaving aside the fact that those who self-identify as “Democrats” are only one part of a much broader anti-ICE coalition that includes leftists, independents, and even conservatives, this rhetoric from Homan is indicative of a couple things on Homan’s part: frustration and fear. Essentially he’s saying that everyone who disagrees with him should shut up and get in line, or else. That implied “or else” is certainly worrying, but it’s not the threat of someone confident in their own power or authority.
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GEO Group Held Accountable in CA Courts
Both a US district judge and the Cal/OSHA board made two separate rulings attempting to hold GEO group accountable for the horrible negligence and abuse in its ICE prisons located in CA.
In June 2022 Cal/OSHA filed a complaint on behalf of immigrants imprisoned in a Kern County ICE prison alleging unsafe working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. GEO has been ordered to pay a six figure penalty and provide immigrants in their facilities in CA the necessary tools and personal protective equipment (PPE) to safely perform jobs. “This is a clear victory for the rights of all workers, and especially for people working while locked up in ICE detention,” said Mariel Villarreal, senior Attorney for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. And this ruling would not have been possible without the worker-led organizing inside this Kern County detention center.
In a different ruling, a US district court judge issued a preliminary injunction to DHS to provide access to clean water, nutritious meals, humane and speedy medical care and sanitary conditions to the prisoners at the Adelanto ICE facility and its desert view annex this past Thursday. ICE must also provide access to free hygiene products, privacy when using restrooms and showers, and clean the facilities daily.
“They will suffer irreparable harm if the court does not issue preliminary injunctive relief,” Judge Sunshine S. Sykes wrote in an eight page injunction that included a demand to GEO Group that its employees may not retaliate in any way against prisoners who speak up about their constitutional rights being violated. “This ruling sends a clear message: no detention facility in this country is above the law,” Rebecca Brown, an attorney involved with the case said. “The court has recognized what we have known all along, that the conditions inside Adelanto are inhumane.”
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Citizens Bank to cut ties with CoreCivic and GEO after a fierce public pressure campaign
The De-ICE Citizens Bank coalition has been working tirelessly to name and shame the fact that Citizens Bank has been providing major services to GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two largest private prison companies who have been collaborating with the current administration. The effort to call fascist collaboration what it is paid off earlier this week, when Citizens Bank announced it will no longer do business with either of the two private prison companies.
A statement released by the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition called this “an important victory for the people who refused to let a major bank finance human suffering brought on by ICE detention activities of the current federal administration.”
Citizens Bank is claiming that the pressure campaign had nothing to do with what they describe as a “business” decision. This is typical: anytime big corporations bow to people power they immediately try to save face by claiming they didn’t. And yet, big corporations keep doing the things they would do if they had been listening. In other words: keep up the pressure, no matter what they say.
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Action Items:
- Find or host a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado and Johan Guerrero
- Linktree to support detainees at Delaney Hall
- Toolkit to support the Adelanto hunger strikers
Support Never Again Action’s organizing by making a donation today. You can make a tax deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor at this link, or you can donate directly to our 501(c)(4) organization at this link.
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If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for next week’s roundup, drop us a line at neveragainaction@gmail.com.