Tag: ICE

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Ice, Ice, Baby: Memphis Prepares For Frigid Blast

Photo by Jodie Walton on Unsplash

Get prepared and stay off the roads.

That’s the advice of the National Weather Service (NWS) in Memphis. Parts of the MidSouth are now under an ice storm warning as temperatures are expected to fall Wednesday evening and rain turns to sleet.

The NWS does not predict a winter wonderland, however. Forecasters predict sleet and ice for the area instead of snow. Icy precipitation is expected to last through Friday morning. Then, wind chills are expected in the single digits with highs only predicted to be in the mid-to-low 30s.

“Power outages and tree damage are likely where significant ice accumulations occur,” reads a statement from the Shelby County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. “Roads and bridges will become very slick and travel will become very dangerous. [Memphis Light, Gas and Water] crews and additional contract crews are ready to respond to any local damage or outages. However, restoration times may be extended due to Covid-19 safety measures.”

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Opinion Viewpoint

ICE on Fire: The Immigration Mess

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has earned the condemnation of many Americans for aggressively capturing and detaining people in our country.

The administration’s overreach on immigration has resulted in images many of us have been trying to unsee: kids in cages, squalid, crowded conditions at detention facilities, some facilities operating at 10 times beyond capacity (in San Diego, for example), kids (six this fiscal year alone) dying in detention, and now the possibility of indefinite detention. ICE, to add to human misery, is now determined to go after immigrant children receiving life-saving medical attention at premier medical facilities in the U.S. — treatments that are not necessarily available in their home nations. How did all this happen?

We’ve spent the past two and a half years focused on the Ionesco-inspired Theater of the Absurd that is the Trump Administration. The show is endlessly distracting, but the behind-the-scenes story involves a potent power grab by a nativist far right, which has found an enemy in immigrants who have no real political power and barely any political representation. Undocumented folks and green card holders don’t vote. In theory, these individuals have rights, but in practice, the onslaught against them has been unrelenting.

Congress won’t act; they don’t have to. So we, the people, must act. But how do we manifest resistance to such inhumanity when it comes from our own federal government?

The vote in 2020 is the most obvious starting point. In the face of what we are seeing at our border, there can be no excuse for rational, decent people not engaging in the next election.

On a local level, the Mariposa Collective here in Memphis has offered a hand in the form of food, clothing, and kindness to migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees, who pass through our city on buses from detention centers. This work continues and still needs committed volunteers and supporters.

Advocates and attorneys at organizations like Latino Memphis, the Community Legal Center, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition are on the frontlines battling to preserve basic rights and the futures of those under siege. Their work is not free, and they deserve our financial support so they can continue and expand their efforts.

We cannot rely on the work of others to fix these problems. Every resident of Memphis needs to understand the full ramifications of what this administration has done and plans to do. Churches, book clubs, and community associations should be educating and informing “the average citizen” about our immigration laws and the rights that all of us have — yes, even those here without documentation. We need good old-fashioned 1960s-style “teach ins” so we all understand that Trump’s efforts to attack our immigration system don’t end at the border, but have real effects on our friends and neighbors here.

We need to continually ask whether our local government is doing enough to protect our fellow residents. Our public officials need to be questioned, continuously, about any collaboration between ICE and our local police force. The City, the Memphis Police Department (MPD), and the Shelby County Sheriff have all gone on record as opposing such collaboration, yet the MPD, Shelby County Sheriff, and the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office are all participants in the so-called West Tennessee Multi-Agency Gang Unit or MGU.

Included among MGU’s participant agencies is at least one Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. MPD officers such as those working in MPD’s Homeland Security operations communicate with ICE and share arrest reports with ICE officers. The full extent of this relationship is unclear.

Thus, we wonder whether the walls of separation between federal law enforcement and the local police are as firm as the local agencies have previously declared. This dividing line is critical. If people in our city refuse to report crimes to the police out of fear for their own safety/possible detention and deportation, it threatens the safety of our community as a whole. We should demand that our local officials obtain the clarity we deserve as Memphians as to the extent of ICE’s participation with the MGU.

Just when you think the theater is over, a new act begins. The only way to tune out this sorry, surreal production is to take action, collectively and individually, because a nation that allows all of this to occur — including indefinite detention of fellow humans — has taken the turn from the theater of absurd to tragedy.

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Detained Journalist to be Released on Bond

CREDIT: Memphis Notacias


Memphis Notacias

Manuel Duran

The Memphis journalist who was arrested during an immigration protest last year, and later taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is being released on bond, according to a Thursday post on the “Free Manuel Duran” Facebook page.

“ICE has set a bond for Manuel and we paid it,” the post reads. “We are in [sic] our way to Alabama to bring him back home.”

Manuel was the owner of and reporter for Memphis Noticias, a local Spanish-language newspaper, before his detainment. The journalist was arrested last spring while live-streaming an immigration protest Downtown.

The charges were dropped and the case was dismissed, but Duran was not released from the Shelby County Jail. ICE officials picked up Duran from the jail and he was transported to the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana.

Facebook

Duran arrested during a protest.

After 15 months in various detention centers, most recently in the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Alabama, the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered that his case be reopened earlier this month, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), one of the groups who’ve provided Duran with legal assistance.

Reopening the case sends it back to a federal immigration judge to have his asylum claim heard.

The SPLC did not immediately respond to the Flyer‘s request for comment. 

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This comes as the conversation on immigration issues and action against ICE raids and migrant detention centers heat up around the country.

Memphis is one of more than 200 cities slated to hold a candlelight vigil Friday night to shine a light on the issue of immigration detention centers.

Organizers of the Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Concentration Camps are partnering with organizations across the country and worldwide to protest migrant conditions that organizers call inhumane.

Mid-South immigration Advocates (MIA), Mismo Sol 901, the Tennessee Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and other advocacy groups are hosting the Friday’s vigil here. It will take place at the Memphis immigration Court on Monroe from 7:00-9:00 p.m.

So far more than 450 people have indicated they are interested or will attend the demonstration on the event’s Facebook page.

Across the country, at least one city in every state has an event planned. Around the world, participants as far away as the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, and Japan will join in.

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Local Leader Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Mass Deportation Threat

CREDIT: Latino Memphis

Latino Memphis

Latino Memphis members distribute immigration information

The leader of a local organization that advocates for the Latino community here called President Donald Trump’s recent threats to remove “millions of illegal aliens” an “explosive” and “divisive” comment, and questioned the verity of the claims. 

On Monday, the president tweeted that Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents would begin removing undocumented immigrants from the country next week.

“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump tweeted. “They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement.

“The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of loopholes, and fix asylum. If so, the Border Crisis will end quickly.”

Local Leader Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Mass Deportation Threat

Executive director of Latino Memphis, Mauricio Calvo said Trump’s statement is “another explosive, non-deliverable, and divisive comment from the president.”

“It doesn’t make any sense logistically, economically, politically, and most importantly, it doesn’t recognize that we are talking about people,” Calvo said. “However, deportations and separation of families are very real and a daily tragedy in our city.

“Thousands of Memphians who are among our neighbors, employees, and friends of our children are vulnerable to this reality.”

Calvo said one way to prepare for this reality is to become informed, citing the national immigration defense campaign, We Have Rights. The campaign’s website gives undocumented immigrants instructions on how to protect themselves when encountering ICE officers or when detained.

For example, the website explains that ICE agents are not allowed to enter or search a home without a warrant signed by a judge. Undocumented immigrants have the right to ask the agents to leave if they do not have a signed warrant.

We Have Rights advises those who have been arrested not to sign any paperwork, to remain silent, and to ask to speak to a lawyer even if they don’t have one. See the video at the bottom for more detail. Anyone who is arrested can be located via this site.

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Calvo also encourages people to get involved in the issue by voting for legislators who support immigration reform.

When asked about the president’s tweet and whether or not ICE would execute raids in Shelby County, ICE’s office of public affairs shed little light on next week’s plans.


ICE officials offered this response in an email to the Flyer:

“The border crisis doesn’t start and stop at the border, which is why ICE will continue to conduct interior enforcement without exemption for those who are in violation of federal immigration law,” the statement reads. “This includes routine targeted enforcement operations, criminals, individuals subject to removal orders, and worksite enforcement.

“This is about addressing the Border crisis by upholding the rule of law and maintaining the integrity of the immigration system, as created by Congress.”

Local Leader Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Mass Deportation Threat (2)

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State Lawmakers File Bills to Address ‘Anti-Sanctuary City’ Law

ICE

Four lawmakers, including two from Memphis, filed legislation this week to ease some of the impact of an immigration law that went into effect January 1st.

One of the bills, SB0507/HB0558, introduced by Tennessee Senator Raumesh Akbari and House Minority Leader Karen Camper, both Democrats from Memphis, would require the state to reimburse local government agencies for the expenses incurred while complying with what they call the “anti-sanctuary city “ law.

Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis)

The new law would ensure that local governments are reimbursed for the cost of detention, litigation, and potential damages if a city is sued as a result of following the law. According to the lawmakers, local governments around the country have been required to pay significant damages when collaboration with federal immigration enforcement agencies has violated constitutional amendments.

The bill proposes creating a way to track the overall cost of adhering to the recently-passed law in order to better understand how local tax dollars are being allocated for the work of the federal government.

“Too often the state legislature saddles local governments with costly, unfunded mandates,” Akbari said. “We believe it’s critical the state understands the true cost of legislation like HB2315 and that the state legislature takes responsibility for the legislation it passes. Memphis is a city that celebrates diversity and people there don’t want local resources committed to anti-immigrant campaigns.”

Karen Camper (D-Memphis)

Camper agreed saying that those resources could be used for other purposes: “Memphians want our state and local governments to use resources effectively and prioritize our community’s needs.

“We must allow local leaders to invest in areas with desperate need like education and healthcare — not force them to divert critical resources to help the federal government deport undocumented members of our community.”

The second bill, SB0931/HB1110, introduced by Rep. Jason Powell and Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro, both Democrats from Nashville, would seek to restore trust between local immigrant communities and state and local governments.

The law would exempt certain agencies from the anti-sanctuary city law, as well as clarify that local police agencies don’t have to inquire about the status of victims or witnesses of crimes.

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The goal is to encourage the cooperation of the immigrant communities with reporting and solving crimes. Finally, the bill would also exempt health and educational institutions so that immigrants can access these without fear of deportation.

Yarbro said police officers can’t promote public safety if people in the community fear them.

“Communities are built on trust,” Yabro said. “The job of law enforcement is to promote public safety and investigate crimes, but they cannot do that effectively when large portions of our communities are afraid to call the police or serve as witnesses.

“I want my local police department to be able to enact common-sense policies that keep our whole community safe, including being able to reassure immigrants who are victims and witnesses that they can cooperate without losing their families.”

Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, policy director at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said the organization warned lawmakers about the motivations for the law and consequences it could have last year.

“Unfortunately, in an election year, members of the legislature chose cheap politics over sound policy,” Sherman-Nikolaus said. “We applaud the sponsors for introducing these bills, which are an important first step in fixing some of the most harmful provisions of this sweeping and misguided new law and repairing some of the trust in local government that has been deeply severed by the passage of HB2315.”

This move from lawmakers comes after Shelby County Attorney Marlinee Clark Iverson gave a legal opinion last month saying that HB2315 would not be applied in Shelby County.

“The language in the statute is unclear to the extent that it can be interpreted as requiring absurd and/or potentially unconstitutional conduct by any law enforcement agency,” Iverson said in her January opinion.

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Opinion Viewpoint

No More Deals with Trump on Immigration

CREDIT: White House

As President Trump’s legal troubles intensify, his public opposition to immigration, immigrants, and refugees has hardened. The “base” — long animated by Trump’s verbal war against the immigrant community — is hanging tough with their president (a.k.a., The Unindicted Co-Conspirator). Immigrant activists and those who hope to see a broad, comprehensive overhaul of our immigration system should cease trying to negotiate with this reckless, criminal organization called the Trump administration and focus entirely on pushing political change.

White House

Stephen Miller

Since Trump first declared as presidential candidate, his supporters have claimed that they are not opposed to legal immigration, but only undocumented immigration, or in Trump parlance “illegals.”  But the administration’s attack on U.S. refugee policy, immediately following his inauguration, completely undermines this argument. Trump and his young, arrogant, neocon political advisor Stephen Miller have quietly targeted legal immigrants — suspecting, perhaps, that Americans might not notice, or care. In 2016, under the Obama administration, 1.2 million immigrants gained lawful permanent residency. The numbers for 2018 suggest that the Trump administration is on track for a 20 percent decrease in green cards granted.

The Trump administration is also proposing to limit the pathways by which people earn residency and citizenship. Under Miller’s design, if an immigrant has accepted any public benefit — such as Obamacare subsidies or social security disability benefits for a disabled child — he or she may find their chances for citizenship significantly diminished. By redefining and broadening the term “public charge,” Miller’s cruel calculus can be enacted without congressional approval.

 The pressure that the Trump administration has put on the immigrant community through enhanced enforcement and rule changes means immigrant advocates are negotiating from a position of weakness and uncertainty. Such negotiations have led to concessions on funding for Trump’s wall, elimination of the lottery visa, and even consideration of an end to family-based immigration — derisively referred to as “chain migration” by hard liners — a bedrock principle of our immigration system for decades. 

These negotiations/concessions must end immediately. If not, we will allow the dangerous dynamic duo of Trump and Miller to remake American immigration policy for generations to come. In negotiating with an administration that does not value immigration — legal or otherwise — we risk undoing more than a half century of policy that has infused our nation with a dynamic pluralism. The very idea of America and the promise the word holds for the world community is on life support, thanks to these dangerous demagogues ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Lyndon Johnson passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, one of his most lasting achievements as president. This law quadrupled the number of immigrants living in the United States from 9.6 million to 45 million. Prior to 1965, more than 75 percent of all immigrants came from Europe. Since the passage of the INA, more than half of all immigrants have their origins in Latin America and 25 percent in Asia. This law directly affected the diversification of the American population: In 1965, 84 percent of the U.S. population was of European descent; now it is approximately 62 percent. 
The co-conspirator in chief and his MAGA movement have grown as a response to these demographic shifts. But demographic shifts are not something Trump can control without a major change in immigration law. Why then should those of us who value diversity and the vision of America as a nation of immigrants negotiate from a position of perceived weakness when time is on our side and no deal under these circumstances strengthens our position?

Fear of demographic changes, fear of science, fear of truth — these are a few of the hallmarks of this angry, antediluvian administration in Washington. It’s time to tune out the noise and hatred billowing out of D.C. and prepare for the future. That future holds the promise of enlightened leadership, coupled with a resituating of the national narrative that has always focused on America as a place of hope and opportunity for the world.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney; Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

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Opinion The Last Word

Free Manuel Duran!

CREDIT: Memphis Notacias

The arrest of local journalist Manuel Duran was viewed live. In a virtual sense, we were there with him. We were there as he reported on the theatrical protest at 201 Poplar on Tuesday, April 3rd. He let us be witnesses, via his phone, as he live-streamed for Memphis Noticias and interviewed individuals who had gathered for a multi-lingual and multi-cultural peaceful demonstration.

He’s a well-known Spanish-language journalist, and he was reporting on a protest against immigration detention and private prisons. He was doing his job, his press credential was visible, and he was the only journalist arrested by the Memphis Police Department that day.

While there were other journalists on site, only Duran talked us through Tuesday’s action as it was happening — giving us unedited, live footage. He filmed protesters holding signs while others lined up, in the spirit of performance activism, dressed in blue scrubs with chains and shackles, others theatrically representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. He showed us, through his eyes, as someone spoke the following words — which continue to ring in my ears today:

Memphis Notacias

Manuel Duran

“We are changing the narrative. Poverty is not the problem. It’s the people who create, engineer, and perpetuate poverty, that is the problem. We have to take the fight to them. This is just a representation of their power, but now, they’ve even monetized jails where they have people working for little to nothing.”

Duran is a Memphis journalist, and he was doing his job. His commentary throughout the live-stream reminded us what this protest, led by the Coalition for Concerned Citizens (C3), Comunidades Unidas en Una Voz (CUUV), and Fight for 15 members, was really about. It was to bring attention to the continued injustices created by private prisons and the prison industrial complex. They were not only calling out the disproportionate rates that black and brown people are incarcerated and how their bodies are exploited for cheap labor, but were also calling for an end to the collaboration between Shelby County and ICE. As Duran says, this is a simple request by the people, given that ICE has increasingly been targeting folks with noncriminal arrests. He also reminded his Spanish-speaking viewers to recognize that while the separation of families through deportation is affecting the hispanic community, black people, too, are tied to this struggle, as black and brown communities are both exploited by private prisons.

Duran was doing his job. And we followed him as he filmed protestors crossing Poplar on the pedestrian crosswalk in front of the Shelby County Justice Center. And we walked backwards with him as he followed police requests to get off of the street. And we watched as an MPD officer pointed at Duran and a protester next to him, and the officer said to nearby cops, “Get ’em, guys.”

Our vision, through Duran’s phone, is shaken. We see the black concrete, the officer’s shoes, and hints of the blue scrubs. We hear a car alarm blaring beats in between people’s screams — and then, we, the viewer, are on the ground looking up at the gray, cloudy sky.

In those same hours the city was observing the MLK50 activities, journalists, photographers, and individual Facebook live-streamers were also documenting this demonstration and the arrests of eight protestors and of one journalist, Manuel Duran. All charges were dropped, and everyone walked, except Duran.

While the sheriff and the county have claimed that there is no collaboration with ICE, Duran’s detention proves otherwise. Their unwillingness to release him came despite overwhelming community support for him. More than 130 organizations and businesses and over 1,000 people made phone calls and sent emails. The sheriff had no obligation to honor the detainment request by ICE, further proving that the city and county are isolating those seeking truth.

In his live-stream, Duran pointed out that there were many journalists at the demonstration because “es importante esta noticia.” This news is important. Duran wanted to share this news with those who could not be there, with those who fear the hyper-surveillance in downtown Memphis, and who feel excluded from #IAmMemphis by means of criminalization. He wanted to show us that when our families are under attack, our communities will show up and support each other to address the causes of injustices and inequities.

Tuesday’s arrests were made with no valid reason. Even Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich had to admit that “[there] was not sufficient evidence to go forward with the prosecution.” But those arrests reveal what is a different Memphis for some and just a daily reality for others. This is not the first time that the state has picked up, arrested, or detained prominent community organizers. In fact, you may remember, earlier this year, we commemorated the life of a particular famous civil rights leader who was targeted for his message in a very similar way.

#FreeManuel

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College. A native of Argentina, she is researching Latinx identity in the South.

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7 Arrested in West Tennessee on Federal Drug Charges

After a year-long investigation, law enforcement arrested seven Dyer County residents on federal drug trafficking charges this morning.

The charges stem from the defendants’ alleged participation in a conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute ice and methamphetamine.

The seven individuals apprehended during the early morning round-up include: 

•Miracle Pounds, 36, of Dyer County (already in state custody)
•Brian Whitt, 37, of Dyer County
•Robert Troy Anderson, 48, of Dyer County
•Christopher Dean, 40, of Dyer County (already in state custody)
•Amy Junior, 42, of Dyer County
•Nicholas Patterson, 42, of Dyer County
•Jonathan Murphy, 37, of Dyer County (already in state custody)

During the year-long investigation, law enforcement seized illicit narcotics, U.S. currency, firearms, and drug paraphernalia.

“Over the last several years, we have seen an increase in the number of cases involving ice, a highly toxic and dangerous substance,” said U.S. Attorney Edward Stanton in a statement. “Ingestion of ice, which is methamphetamine with at least 80% purity, and crystal meth causes profound and almost immediate physical, mental and emotional consequences, while the production process can also be deadly. This case demonstrates our commitment to ridding West Tennessee of this menace.”

A task force composed of agents from the DEA, FBI, and U.S. Marshals Service, and law enforcement officials with the Dyer County Sheriff’s Department, Dyersburg Police Department, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Highway Patrol made the arrests. 

Illegal drug distribution appears to be a growing issue in Dyer County. 

In January, 13 Dyer County residents were indicted on federal drug trafficking violations. The indictments stem from the selling, manufacturing, and distributing of powder cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana, as well as the unlawful possession of ammunition by convicted felons.