Street Roots • June 22-28, 2018
Page 3
E d ito r ia l
The fight moves forward on immigration
t has been an emotional, gut-wrenching few
weeks. The images and sounds of young children
screaming and crying for their mothers and
fathers has pushed many of us to the limit.
We are demanding an end to the cruelty and
heartless treatment of human beings, orchestrated by
powerful men in order to
_________________ secure even more power.
People, politicians,
organizations and companies
across the globe are putting
________________ their foot down on the Trump
administration’s policy of
separating families,
incarcerating children and criminalizing their parents
in a system observers say offers no protocol for
reunification.
And it’s working.
Earlier this week Trump reversed his policy and
signed an executive order to keep families together
during detention while their cases were being
processed. There is an exemption for cases in which
the child’s safety is believed to be in danger.
While this new tack shows a little give in the
administration, it is not a change in course. This
administration, since May, has removed an estimated
2,300 children from their parents’ arms. How, when
and where these families will be reunited remains
unclear, with many observers noting there isn’t a
reliable system in place for reunification. It’s a game
of assigned numbers and bureaucracy in a vacuum of
information, legal representation and sanity.
The atrocity happening on our border has
highlighted the gross flaws in our immigration system
in a way unlike other tragic consequences of o u r
I
EDITORIAL
p o lic ie s . S o m u c h h a s to c h a n g e .
The long-game for this administration is the border
wall, a campaign promise Trump has tried to secure
with several strong-armed tactics. He’s tried brow
beating Mexico into paying for it and vilifying those
crossing the border as violent criminals. He’s held
hundreds of thousands of talented teenagers hostage
with the suspension of DACA, the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals program. And now he’s
permanently traumatizing children, not as a needed
safety and immigration measure, but to trigger - if
only out of desperation - a political reaction to make
the nonsense stop.
We need to restore the long-game to real
immigration reform. We have to make our
immigration system fair and constructive for people
seeking asylum, refuge and a better life. We’ve got to
stop wasting resources and opportunities in the
senseless effort to keep people down.
We also need to disconnect the profit motive
behind this. For-profit prison corporations are
salivating at the waves of men, women and children
currently and soon to be incarcerated. Detention
facilities are their growth industry. And every step of
the process, from transportation to phone services, is
a revenue generator for private companies, courtesy
of your tax dollars. The Obama administration acted
to phase out the use of for-profit corporations for
federal prisoners, a policy the Trump administration
reversed within minutes in office.
Today, things have changed. All across the country,
lawyers, politicians, labor unions and clergy are
united in their opposition to our treatment of
immigrant families. The president’s executive order
shows the pushback has made a difference.
And at the ICE facility in Portland, a round-the-
clock protest dubbed OccupylCEPDX prompted the
closure of the short-term detention center for
immigrants. It’s not known when it will reopen.
So often in history, generations have said “never
again.” And yet history is repeated - from slavery to
the extermination of indigenous populations, the
incarceration of Japanese Americans and now the
detention and destruction of Latino families at our
borders.
Now is not the time for people to sit on the
sidelines expecting history to right the wrongs as a
matter of course. Inaction and complacency are what
the proponents of these policies are counting on.
Now is the time to speak out to our representatives
and tell them “never again.” Write and call those who
have sat on the sidelines and those who have
Write in
if you would like
to have
something
that you’ve
written published
in our pages, or would
ike to get involved as a
member of our reporting staff,
contact Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl at
503-228-5657, joanne@streetroots.org.
We ask that all submissions include the
author’s name and contact information,
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s u p p o rte d th e s e c ru e l ta c tic s and le t th e m know w e
w ill n o t t o l e r a t e y e t a n o t h e r r a c ia l a s s a u lt in t h e
supposedly unassailable name of law s w e, as a p eo p le,
have created.
Support the legal efforts to bring justice to those
injured.
Buy OccupylCEPDX a pizza. Show up.
And most importantly, vote.
Efforts to repeal Oregon’s so-called sanctuary
status, which prohibits local law enforcement officers
from working as agents for federal immigration and
deportation policies, are underway with the goal of
placing a measure on the November ballot. There is a
reason the separation between local peace keepers
and federal agents exists, and it is rooted in its
history of abuse and incarceration of legal, American
citizens because of their heritage.
Never again.
Program Assistant Caelin M iltko, Jesuit
Vendor Assistant Scott Jackson, Alex
Gillow-Wiles
Development Assistant Rosemary Wilson
Editorial Producer Monica Kwasnik
Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilly
Prado, Ellena Rosenthal, Amanda Waldroupe,
Thacher Schmid, DeVon Pouncey, Helen Hill
Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown,
Celeste Noche
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
Board of Directors
Protesters organized
under the banner of
OccupylCEPDX
outside of the ICE
detention office in
Portland on June
16. The office closed
its operations
indefinitely as a
result of the
ongoing
demonstration.
P H O T O B Y D IE G O D IA Z
Chair Rachel Langford
Vice-Chair Dan Jones
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Alison Hallett
Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn,
John Brown, Nels Johnson
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Floren, Mark Oldani, Bianca Butler, Camber Hansen-
Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Helen Hill,
Mary Emerson, Brooke Anderson, Kathleen McFall,
Robb Hengerer, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Faye
Powell, Jon Raymond, Danny Moran and Megan
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