Stop the Raids!

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) has embarked on a prolonged campaign of kidnapping raids and racist terror. Sometimes with the help of local police authorities, all around the country, they are stealing away women and men from our families and from the streets of our communities. The New Civil Rights Movement must put a stop to this. What we need is a tactic that can mobilize the strength of the communities where I.C.E. is plotting to kidnap people.

Churches all across the country must become sanctuaries for immigrants and act when raids occur. When raids occur, immigrants with and without papers and all supporters of dignity and equal treatment should go directly to churches that are participating in this effort – we must do our best to gather information so that we can prepare in advance of raids if that is possible. A call should be put out for mass demonstrations at churches where immigrants are seeking sanctuary. Immigrants facing deportation orders or families who don’t want to be torn apart can take sanctuary in the churches until the raid is over.

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We must test the weakness of the I.C.E. policy with mass action. The manner in which the I.C.E. kidnapping raids are being conducted is shaped by the weakness of the policy itself. Their policy is shaped by deception and cowardice. They attempt to strike when we don’t expect it. They try to take us when we are alone or defenseless.

The church sanctuary mobilizations are a way to focus broad media and public attention to our fight to stop the raids. This tactic will test the limits of the authority of I.C.E. If I.C.E. is consistently unable to carry out the arrest and deportation of immigrants taking sanctuary in churches around the country, we can break their will to conduct further raids. Successful defenses of raids will be a defiant example for all those fighting for the dignity and equality of Latina/o people. We will look strong, they will look weak. Immigrants who are being hunted will no longer have hiding as their only option. We can come out into the light of day and stand proudly.

There is risk involved in this effort. However, there is risk involved when I.C.E. comes into our communities. What we can do is prepare and mobilize our strength. IT'S TIME TO TAKE A STAND. Every church, labor union, community group, and civil rights group that stands for the dignity and equal treatment of Latina/o people must join this effort. The safety and security of immigrants taking part in these actions will require broad support in action. We need to develop broad networks of individuals and organizations who can respond quickly to the kidnappings.

Mexican and other Latin American people are human beings, not animals to be hunted down. People who are a contributing part of the society are citizens, regardless of where we come from, what forms they have filled out or what government office we have waited in. A society whose state resources are expended to break up families and tear mothers and fathers out of the hands of their children must be saved from its own moral depravity. In 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King jr., the youth of Birmingham, and the first civil rights movement broke the back of racist Jim Crow segregation. This campaign to stop the raids can provide us with our Birminghams. We can win this fight. We are strong. The New Civil Rights Movement can conquer all. We will win!

A Political Program and Perspectives for Our Movement

• BAMN Declaration on Immigrant Rights

• Where We Go From Here: Report on the March 30, 2007 walkouts and perspective for our how our struggle for dignity and equality can win.

• Call to Action for Leaders of the New Civil Rights Movement: Report and perspectives coming out of the spring 2006 mass mobilizations.

• Youth Declaration for a New Civil Rights Movement

• BAMN's Principles