This is an awful policing tactic, why bother with evidence and probable cause and all those pesky rights and due process afforded people in our criminal justice system if you can just accuse them of something they have not done yet and get them deported without letting them have an opportunity to defend themselves . . . and this time, its not the Sheriff, its the Madison Police Department . . .
Immigrant Workers Union (IWU) and families raise critics about last raid in Madison
MADISON, Wis. – Agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Madison Police Department (MPD), arrested 11 Latino youth with the purpose of removing them due belonging to a gang last Tuesday. Reportedly by ICE Press Release more of 50% of detainees do not have any crime record and actually they have not been charged with any crime other than been “illegally” in this country which is not a crime, but a civil offense.
Some detainees’ relatives approach Immigrant Workers Union last Wednesday asking for the whereabouts of their kids. “On Tuesday, some agents from outside town stopped by our home and asked questions about my son, we collaborate and tell them where he was working. The next thing we learn is that our kid is in Dodge County Jail under immigration proceedings” says one of the parents of an 18 years old kid who has not any violent criminal record.
“Detainees’ families complain about what it seems a sweeping operation without constitutional or due process guarantees, what is the criterion? Some of those kids where in the wrong place or company at the wrong time, but that does not make them criminals” says Yvonne Geerts from IWU, while one of the detainees’ father stated “I want to believe that justice has been served but in the case of my son, he does not deserve to be deported, just because MPD does not want to do the proper investigations and consequent charges”
IWU states that Local agencies collaborating with ICE as a shortcut to “diminish potential threats” is a practice that creates more risks and solve nothing in our community:
1. Latino youth, who already is profiled as gang member just by the way they dress or act, will and are already feeling more afraid of local police because their collaboration with ICE. This is a great asset for gang recruiting, “disfranchising thousands of kids in our community does not make us safer, but unsafe” said Alex Gillis from the IWU.
2. For parents, even if they know their kids are at risk of being in a gang, they feel less incline to collaborate or even contact local agencies and programs because they do not know if they are turning their relative to ICE, like in this case.
3. MPD it is not effectively decreasing gang activity, but shifting power and opportunity to those gangs who have not undocumented kids in their ranks.
MPD Chief stated in a press release “we are focused on removing violent gang members from the streets of Madison […] It is a matter of public safety“. IWU will ask formally to MPD shall press charges after a legal investigation, letting criminal justice sentence them by the law, instead using ICE agency as a point and deport gun.
