ICE Abducts Man Suing Off-Duty Police for Abusing Day Laborers
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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We Must Not Posthumously Sanitize Charlie Kirk's Hateful Life
Political violence is always abhorrent. That’s why Never Again Action exists: to flank, support, and stand in solidarity with “those affected by the daily violence of the [American] immigration system.” This violence happens every day, whether in Chicago, DC, the Texas border, Boston, or LA--just to name the places that have seen outsized effects of it in the last few weeks.
In spite of this ongoing violence, it’s the assassination of a media influencer named Charlie Kirk that’s been dominating the news cycle this week. To murder someone over speech is reprehensible. And at the same time, as Erin Reed articulates, “We must not sanitize Kirk’s hateful life.” Reed notes: “To call for ‘continuing [Kirk’s] work’ or to praise how he ‘practiced politics’ is to erase what that work actually was: a relentless campaign of hate directed at LGBTQ+ people, racial and ethnic minorities, and anyone who refused to fall in line.” If you think Reed is exaggerating, The Guardian published a compendium of Kirk’s abhorrent comments on various matters, including his promotion of the “Great Replacement” theory, a racist theory that has inspired multiple mass shooters to target immigrants, Jews, and other minority communities.
We’re already seeing the regime use this event to further its agenda, with the State Department warning immigrants that if they are caught making light of Kirk’s death, they may be deported. This is part of what appears to be a coordinated campaign to get anyone fired or deported who exercises their free speech in a way that is less than deferential to Kirk’s legacy. Marco Rubio claimed that this was in the interest of preserving Americans’ “free speech,” an assertion so baffling it even has the right-leaning Time Magazine invoking Orwell’s “1984.”
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US immigration officers kill man trying to flee vehicle stop near Chicago
His name was Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, and his killing by ICE agents on Friday, September 12, in Franklin Park, Illinois, is an act of shocking political violence owed our attention and outrage.
The state has killed a father, a human being, a person who had become the target of a national-level ethnic cleansing campaign at the center of a fascist hate machine. Chicago and surrounding areas are the site of the so-called “Midway Blitz,” an increased immigration enforcement campaign directed by Donald Trump timed to coincide with Mexican Independence Day. Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez has paid a terrible price for this fascist special project.
Villegas-Gonzalez had just dropped his children off at daycare when he was stopped.
In an attempt to justify the killing, ICE agents said they feared for their lives, they were threatened, they were only acting in self defense. The Department of Homeland Security has refused to release any further details to bolster these claims, leaving us to take the word of an institution of kidnappers and abusers that this time they did the right thing.
Villegas-Gonzalez was a human being, and now he is dead. As our movement ancestor and labor activist Mother Jones said, we must mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
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ICE Abducts Man Suing Off-Duty Police for Abusing Day Laborers
In its recent raids in Chicago, ICE disappeared community leader William Gimenez after the Venezuelan-American joined a lawsuit against the abuse of day laborers by off-duty Chicago police working as security at Home Depot. Mari Torrealba, Gimenez’ wife, joined protests calling for Gimenez’s release. ICE has not revealed where they are holding him.
The kidnapping of this brave advocate is no accident. “He’s again been profiled, not only for being a Spanish-speaking person in another country, but for being someone who exposed racism and abuse of power in the United States,” said Kevin L. Herrera, the legal director of Raise the Floor Alliance and attorney for Gimenez.
Learn more and support the vital work of Raise the Floor Alliance here: https://www.raisetheflooralliance.org/
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HBA condemns court ruling allowing Trump’s revocation of lawful status for parole beneficiaries
On September 12, the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston sided with the Trump administration in ruling that the administration’s termination of humanitarian parole was legal ( in Svitlana Doe v. Noem). The ruling impacts about 500,000 recipients of humanitarian parole from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, greenlighting a mass revocation of lawful status and work authorization from parole beneficiaries. Note that “humanitarian parole” is granted based on “urgent humanitarian reasons,” meaning people who came to this country fleeing violence, instability, or other life-threatening situations.
The San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has condemned the ruling. HBA Executive Director and Founder Guerline Jozef said it has significant implications for other humanitarian parole programs at issue in the case, meaning that even more refugees might be sent back to dangerous situations.
Presidential administrations from both parties have followed parole processes in the past in an effort to promote family unification and humanitarian interests. Donate to Haitian Bridge Alliance here.
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📣📣📣 We are continuing to show up for our friend, Xóchitl, who was abducted by ICE from the El Paso airport on August 3rd, despite holding DACA status. Her case has been dismissed by a judge, but ICE is keeping her detained and can still appeal the decision. We need to keep up the pressure in the meantime. Find ways to support her in small ways here or consider getting Never Again Action’s support to plan your own action here.
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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.