As your constituent, I demand that you protect immigrant communities and our right as Americans to protest the despicable treatment of people who came to America to build better lives and are being targeted and scapegoated by this administration.
The Trump administration’s over-the-top, paramilitary-style raids of communities and workplaces is horrific. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “rounding up” and questioning immigrants, demanding to see their papers, and whisking them away to detention centers. Americans have spoken out against such behavior in other countries. The dreaded measures we criticize elsewhere are now happening across our nation.
Calling up the California National Guard represents a dangerous escalation. The fact that the president deployed the Guard without the state’s consent—and promises to “have troops everywhere,” even in response to nonviolent demonstrations—is frightening.
Labor leader David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union California (SEIU) and SEIU-United Service Workers West, was injured and hospitalized. After his discharge from the hospital, he was placed in federal custody simply for peacefully observing the raids. He has since been released from custody.
Disagreeing with the administration’s policies and choosing to display it should not put anyone at risk for injury or incarceration. What we are witnessing is deplorable and goes far beyond Mr. Huerta and Los Angeles. This is about our right to peacefully protest, and go to work, school, and other places without being questioned with no cause, without looking over our shoulders, and without fearing that we may not be able to return home.
America will lose all that has made us a beacon throughout the world if you do take action against these disgraceful roundups of human beings who are trying to build better lives and over-the-top responses to protests. I urge you to denounce and oppose ICE’s dangerous immigration raids and inexcusable attempts to silence protest.
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