October 18, 2017 The Skanner Page 9
ACLU Files ‘Freedom of Information
Act’ Request with ICE
News
Stacey Adams Wants to be America’s
First Black Female Governor
Will Stacey Abrams Be America’s First Black
Female Governor in U.S. History?
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
T
Andrade-Tafolla and his wife as ICE agents attempt to detain them
on Sept. 18, 2017
The attempted arrests
were criticized by Wash-
ington County Sheriff
Pat Garret, as well as U.S.
Reps. Suzanne Bonami-
ci and Earl Blumenauer,
who asked that ICE apol-
ogize to Andrade-Tafolla
and for an explanation
into its questionable
practices.
“Targeting U.S. citizens
on the basis of race is a
clear violation on their
constitutional
rights,”
wrote the representa-
tives in a letter to Eliz-
abeth Godfrey, deputy
fi eld director for the ICE
Removal Operations in
Portland.
The ACLU of Oregon
fi led the request to gath-
er more information on
how federal immigration
agents are conducting
operations in Oregon,
exacerbated
further,
it says, by President
Trump’s race-based at-
tacks on immigrants and
refugees in the U.S.
“We submitted this
FOIA request so that we
can learn more about
how ICE is using racial
profi ling to make arrests
in Oregon,” said Mat dos
Santos, legal director at
the ACLU of Oregon, in a
statement.
The request details
how, soon aft er President
Trump assumed offi ce,
the group began receiv-
ing lawyer-penned re-
ports of ICE agents stop-
ping their Latino clients
around courthouses in
Multnomah, Clackamas,
and Washington coun-
ties.
In the request, the civ-
il liberties group also
notes that California,
New York, Connecticut,
Colorado and Washing-
ton have joined forces,
formally requesting that
the ICE not make arrests
in or around their court-
houses.
By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire
Contributor)
he GOP has held a tight grip on
the governor’s mansion in Geor-
gia since 2002, when Sonny Per-
due, promising to restore the
Confederate battle cross to the state
fl ag, defeated Democratic incumbent
Roy Barnes to become the fi rst Repub-
lican to hold the position in the Peach
State since Reconstruction.
But, a motivated Democrat is look-
ing to change that and shatter a glass
ceiling that has never been broken in
the United States.
Stacey Abrams, the Georgia state
house minority leader, who holds
degrees from Spelman College and
the Yale School of Law, is seeking to
become America’s fi rst Black female
governor.
“It’s a very humbling experience
to know that, if I win this election, I
would have achieved something that
Black women, as far back as Barbara
Jordan and Shirley Chisholm, have
fought for, not necessarily the same
job, but transforming how we think
about leadership in America,” Abrams
said in an interview with the NNPA
Newswire. “Physically claiming that
mantle of leadership and holding it
signals that anything is possible and
we can redefi ne what leadership looks
like and who we can lift up.”
Abrams, 43, said she’s undaunted by
the stranglehold the GOP has had on
the governor’s mansion for the past
15 years.
She said Georgia will likely be a
majority-minority state in the com-
ing years which provides Democrats
more of an opportunity to claim the
seat next year.
Abrams noted that Democrats have
gained steamed, citing the 2006 race
where the party lost by nearly 400,000
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
T
he ACLU of Oregon
fi led a Freedom of
Information
Act
request last week
with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement
(ICE), the federal law en-
forcement agency that
governs border control.
The request comes on
the heels of the ICE’s at-
tempt to detain Isidro
Andrade-Tafolla, 46, and
his wife on Sept. 18.
Dressed
in
plain-
clothes, two ICE agents
in an unmarked vehicle
surrounded the Forest
Grove couple as they left
the Washington County
courthouse in Hillsboro,
Ore.
Footage of the alterca-
tion was captured by a
volunteer legal observer
using the ALCU’s Mobile
Justice smartphone app.
The video revealed that
the federal immigration
agents did not identify
themselves – or present
a warrant for arrest –
yet demanded to see An-
drade-Tafolla’s identity
documents.
As explained by An-
drade-Tafolla’s wife in
the video, the couple
was shown a mugshot of
a man, aft er which the
agents told Andrade-Ta-
folla that it was him in
the photo.
Andrade-Tafolla, who
came from Mexico in
1981 at the age of 10, pro-
tested the claim and said
the only resemblance
was skin color. He be-
came an American citi-
zen in 1996 and has been
employee of the county’s
Land Use and Transpor-
tation Department for
almost 20 years.
The couple was left
alone only aft er addition-
al agents approached the
scene and communicated
that they had the wrong
man.
VIDEO STILL FROM LEGAL OBSERVER USING MOBILE JUSTICE APP
The civil liberties group wants to know how
the federal immigration enforcement agency is
operating in Oregon communities
Georgia state house minority leader Stacey
Abrams is running to become America’s fi rst
Black female governor.
votes but signifi cantly closed the gap
during the last election in 2014, com-
ing within less than 200,000 votes of
victory.
Four Republicans—Lieutenant Gov-
ernor Casey Cagle; Secretary of State
Brian Kemp; State Senator Hunter
Hill; and State Senator Michael Wil-
liams and two Democrats—Abrams
and State Representative Stacey Ev-
ans—have declared their candidacy
for the post.
The New Georgia Project, a non-par-
tisan voter registration group, that
Abrams launched three years ago,
may also help her candidacy.
“It’s the single largest voter registra-
tion eff ort in recent memory in Geor-
gia and we have been able to register
more than 200,000 people of color in
Georgia to vote,” Abrams said. “I just
don’t talk, I have a record that we need
to talk about.”
The Guardian reported that, Abrams
is “One of six children born to Meth-
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