DNC Chair: Recent ICE Arrests Make Us All Less Safe

WASHINGTON – DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile released the following statement:
 
“We gain nothing, absolutely nothing, from splitting up families, targeting immigrants with no criminal record, and arresting people who were brought to the United States as children. Without cause, immigrants around the country are being detained and used as a scapegoats to whip up more anti-immigrant sentiment – something Donald Trump has been doing since he launched his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. One woman in Denver, Jeanette Vizguerra, has taken refuge in a church basement with her three American-born children, desperately hoping she can keep her family together.
 
“President Trump should be using federal immigration enforcement resources to make our nation safer. Instead, he’s terrorizing communities with arbitrary arrests, scaring families and making them far less likely to report serious crimes to law enforcement. We are all less safe as a result.”
 
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Stories from immigrants caught up in the ICE raids:
 
ICE agents showed up at 50-year-old painter Manuel Mosqueda’s home in the LA suburbs looking for someone else, detained and jailed him after an attempted deportation.

ICE went to an apartment looking for a wanted man — picked up everyone else in the apartment except for a woman with a baby in her arms, separating families.
 

 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detain a suspect during an enforcement operation on 7 February in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: (Charles Reed/AFP/Getty Images)

ICE agents knocked on a door looking for a suspect and ended up arresting another with no criminal record. “This was not normal” said Salas, executive director of the Coalition for the Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
 
ICE agents in the Los Angeles area Thursday took a number of individuals into custody over the course of an hour, seizing them from their homes and on their way to work.

 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detain a suspect as they conduct a targeted enforcement operation in Los Angeles, California, on Feb. 7, 2017. Photograph COURTESY CHARLES REED/U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT VIA REUTERS

ICE agents detained a man while at work at Target Store in the San Fernando Valley.

ICE is stopping undocumented immigrants in traffic, attempting to arrest them in their homes and patrolling the area around an HEB grocery store in the northwestern part of the city (Austin,TX).
 

Angel Velazquez wipes tears from her eyes after exiting the courthouse in downtown Austin, Texas. Her boyfriend, Hugo, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 10, 2017, and now faces deportation. (ROQUE PLANAS/THE HUFFINGTON POST)

 
Churches and stores empty as parishioners are afraid to leave the house, afraid their families will be torn apart after raids sent shock waves of fear through New York.

Nationwide wave of fear and uncertainty forces families to keep their children home from school and out of public eye.

Kids traumatized as they live in fear that their government is coming for them or their parents. “Good, hardworking everyday folk” worried for their safety have students missing from school.
 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detain a suspect during an enforcement operation on Feb. 7 in Los Angeles. Photograph (CHARLES REED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

 
Woman considering giving up custody of her American citizen children in case the family is torn up from deportation, terrified to let her children go outside after school.
 
Business owners notice significantly decreased numbers of patrons and sales after rumors of ICE checkpoint set up to detain undocumented immigrants.

 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conduct a targeted enforcement operation in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. on February 9, 2017. Courtesy Bryan Cox/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via REUTERS