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A Call For A Full Stop on Immigration Enforcement

Although the new administration has centered immigration as their top priority, they have failed to listen to the ongoing demands from grassroots organizers and advocates who have been calling for the liberation of all immigrants, the shutting down of immigrantion detention centers and bold legislation that undoes the harm of criminalization. 

While the Biden Administration has outlined a need to address the “root cause” of immigration from Central America, they have failed to reckon with the US’s role in creating the conditions that forced people to migrate to this country in the first place.

Not only that, this new administration has to address its anti-Black and anti-immigrant policies that has led Black immigrants from Haiti, Cameroon and other African countries to languish in family detention centers across the United States. In a recent report, RAICES, a community organization in Texas highlighted the impact of the immigration system on Black immigrants. They pointed out that in 2020 alone, “the U.S. detained more Haitian families than any other ethnic group.” Furthermore, they point out that Black immigrants on average pay higher bonds to gain their freedom and are at greater risk of deportation. Black-led organizations have been doing the work of uplifting and pushing back against the constant erasure of Black immigrants. 

The question is, what is the plan of the Biden-Harris administration? How will they protect and respond to the needs of the Black community when it continues to be under attack? Guerline Jozef, Executive Director at the Haitian Bridge Alliance highlights that on the night prior to the inauguration, Black immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica and Mauritania were being deported and two Haitian brothers were separated by CBP at the San Francisco airport, leading to the deportation of one and the placement of the other in ORR custody. There is nothing to fix about an immigration system that is rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness. One begs to question whether the system is broken or if it was created this way.

President Biden has a moral obligation to put state and local governments on check because they too have been complicit in detentions and deportations. Biden can take action by directing the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to stop all detentions and deportations. Far too often we have seen these agencies go unchecked and have often violated the constitutional rights of individuals to effectuate arrests and deportations. White supremacists have not only stormed the Capitol in DC in recent days, for the past four years and beyond they have also hidden behind police uniforms to facilitate the deportation of community members without question or accountability. Here locally in Orange County, Sheriff Don Barnes in 2019 worked to deport close to 500 Orange County residents, the most from any law enforcement agency in the state of California. 

ICE, their deportation machine, criminalization, over-policing and police-ICE collusion runs deep. We need bold leadership from Biden and Harris to stop these violations and deportations.

Response Needed to Address COVID in Orange County

Taking a closer look at Orange County, elected officials have neglected and actively pushed conspiracy theories about the reality and devastation of COVID-19. Their lack of leadership on the issue has exacerbated COVID cases in the County. The Voice of OC has reported that yesterday on Biden’s inauguration “1,975 people were hospitalized, including 527 in intensive care units. But deaths are steadily increasing. The virus has now killed 2,508 people out of 216,509 confirmed cases, including 31 new deaths [today].” Additionally, there was a major outbreak earlier this month inside the Orange County Jail that toppled over 1,000 cases. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department failed to adequately respond to the onset of this outbreak in the jail when it originally started with 74 cases. 

As a whole, COVID-19 continues to spread throughout central Orange County impacting cities like Anaheim and Santa Ana where there are heavy concentrations of communities of color, there are lower household incomes, and are higher density areas. While it may be easy to blame our communities for the spread of the virus, systemic barriers, housing discrimination, gentrification, policing, lack of access to affordable healthcare have all contributed to these cities being hotspots. In short, COVID is wreaking havoc on communities of color in Orange County.

And while national data shows that communities of color, including Black, Indigenous and People of Color are the hardest hit by COVID, white people have made up the majority (43%) of those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine in Orange County thus far leaving behind the Latinx and Black community. The rollout of the vaccine has missed the mark. While we know the first round and rollout of the vaccine has gone to frontline healthcare workers, we can not ignore race in the subsequent rounds of the rollout, especially in cities hardest hit by COVID like Anaheim and Santa Ana. The new administration has to prioritize Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color in their vaccine distribution to meet local and national trends of COVID spread.

COVID in Prisons and Immigration Detention Centers

Beyond Orange County at the Adelanto Immigration Detention in San Bernardino where OC residents are detained for ICE, ICE has failed to adequately respond to several outbreaks which eventually led a federal judge to intervene to immediately reduce the detained population. President Joe Biden cannot talk about responding to the coronavirus without explicitly mentioning and addressing the outbreaks in federal and state prisons, immigration detention centers, city and county jails.

Our Fight is Not Over

To the Biden-Harris Administration: Do better, listen and take leadership from grassroots organizing efforts who have been on the ground working with directly impacted community members and youth.

To the Community: Our fight is not over. We still share the responsibility of holding this new administration and our local electeds accountable. It has been and continues to be the leadership and advocacy of our communities that has led the way in swinging the pendulum a little more towards justice. There is still much work left to do. People power and advocacy won us local victories including the Santa Ana Sanctuary City Ordinance, Universal Representation for families facing deportation, and created the conditions for youth to reclaim city Funds. Base-building and organizing will be what will guide us through in the coming years.

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For Immediate Release: 

Contact: Ana Ramirez-Zarate

Orange County, CA – On June 18th, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Trump Administration wrongfully ended DACA, allowing the program to remain in place. This decision impacts nearly 700,000 beneficiaries. This is a legal battle that has dragged on since 2017 when the Trump administration first announced their intent to end DACA. What came next was a series of lawsuits against the Trump administration. As a result of these legal fights USCIS stopped accepting new applications and only allowed renewals from those who previously had DACA. On November 12, 2019, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments and finally made a decision today.

Although this is a positive outcome for DACA recipients, this is a critical point for us to continue fighting for what is right – and that is the right for our people to live a dignified life. We cannot forget that many people in our community continue to be left out, criminalized by an administration and society that has chosen to uphold narratives that dilute the lived experiences of our communities. We must use this time to demand more, demand human rights for all of the members of the community. 

As a community there are next steps that we must engage in to ensure that what happened today is seen as the continuation of a larger fight to hold those in elected positions accountable, to have critical conversations within our communities about why it is important to push the envelope when it comes to immigrant rights in this country. It is time to listen to youth, parents, and everyone else that has been excluded. We must do better because our communities deserve better. 

This is a call in to the community to show up, lift our voices and demand more of those around us. 

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This apology is long overdue and that in itself has caused additional violence. As Resilience OC, we wholeheartedly apologize to Black youth, more specifically we apologize to Black young womxn, within our spaces and programs who have been harmed by anti-Black statements and actions. 

Recently, young Black womxn have raised and voiced the harm and anti-Blackness that they experienced in our space, and in our collaborative spaces back in 2018. In the summer of 2018, three organizations (KRC, VietRISE, ROC) came together and launched OCYOP (OC Youth Organizing Project) and the “Power to The People” program. Although the intention of these projects was cross-cultural solidarity among youth in OC, blatant anti-Blackness prevented this collaborative intention from being realized. 

Within these summer programs, young Black womxn were harmed by anti-Black actions, statements, and complicity by our organizers, facilitators, participants, and collaborative partners. We take responsibility for the manner in which anti-Blackness was dismissed and tolerated. 

In an effort to use transformative justice tools to address the harm that was caused, we took too long in our processes to address the instances of anti-Blackness that took place. By failing to reject anti-Blackness as soon as it manifested in our space, we prolonged harm to the young Black womxn in our space. It is our deep regret that our personal and organizational learning is happening at the expense of two young Black womxn.

We understand that anti-Blackness is deeply rooted in our daily lives and recognize that we have not done nearly enough to dismantle systemic anti-Blackness in our work, in our movement, and in our community. We are truly sorry and we want to take the time to welcome dialogue with anyone that has been hurt by our anti-Black actions and complicity, including the young Black womxn who experienced harm and anti-Blackness in 2018.

To begin, we want to hold a public community listening session for Resilience OC to listen to Black youth in OC. While we understand if folks that were harmed may not want to participate in our accountability process or learning, we do want to take the necessary steps to have folks feel most comfortable in participating in this process. We are open to being in conversation to plan this out together and consider what additional steps need to be taken to ensure that we respect and make folks feel the most comfortable possible in this open dialogue.

We don’t expect Black youth to be burdened with the emotional labor of showing us how to move forward, but if Black youth are open to supporting us and to guiding us, we are open to that and humbly welcome that support and guidance. We understand that as an organization ending our complicity in anti-Blackness is our responsibility and something we will have to work on our own as an organization. 

WE MAKE A COMMITMENT TO TAKE ACTIONABLE IMPROVEMENTS TO END OUR COMPLICITY IN ANTI-BLACKNESS.

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