mirac

Hi everyone my name is Robert Erickson and I’m really excited to here! Its people like you and events like this that make our country great! Give yourselves a round of applause!

We have a problem in this country. Illegal immigration has been a blemish on the face of America for hundreds of years, and the time has come to set things right.

Build Unity to Fight for Immigrant Rights
A response to Francisco Gonzalez

Introduction

Folks-I am trying to contact MIRAc with a question about Oct 17 but can't seem to find an email for them on their website? Anyone know the email?

On the morning of Friday, May 22, 2009 Immigrant and Indigenous Rights activists disrupted an event organized by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) held at Fort Snelling in St. Paul, MN. Present at the meeting were representatives of several local and federal law enforcement agencies including, but not limited to, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Minneapolis and St. Paul police, the FBI, and the ICE Office of Detention and Removal.

Also present were representatives from local human rights groups, immigration lawyers and other non-profit advocacy organizations. Members and supporters of the Dakota community and the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAc) demanded answers to human rights abuses perpetrated by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. Among the abuses mentioned were the 92 documented deaths of detainees under ICE custody due to physical and psychological abuse and lack of medical attention, the deplorable and inhumane conditions at detention centers, the illegal deportation of U.S. citizens due to racial profiling, the separation of children from their parents as a direct result of ICE raids and deportations, and the lack of due process and legal representation.

NOTICE OF DEPORTATION.pdf

There's a signless pinkish building at the corner of American and Metro in Bloomington Minnesota.  Like US immigration policy, this building is hidden in plain sight--visible to immigrants and their allies but ignored by the rest of the nation. This is the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, anondescript place where deportees are held on the last night before they're driven to the airport and sent away.  Sometimes they leave behind families and children; sometimes they return to countries they last saw while still too young to remember.  One woman left her autistic and medically vulnerable son. 

"My father would never get to see me graduate high school," said Nick Espinosa, one of the activists who spoke at today's action in front of the ICE facility.  Espinosa's father came to the US at the age of 18.  Despite years of ordinary employment and participation in society, he was taken away by immigration agents in front of his family. ICE "sees immigration as a statistic," said Espinosa.  "Immigration has a human face."

"If people don't listen to these words then we must act," Espinosa continued.  He would later be arrested during a blockade of the facility.

MN Immigrant Rights Action Coalition | Related: Workday Minnesota Video | Photos from May 1 March for Immigrant Rights | Community Members Call for Protest at ICE HQ | Statement of Support from OWO Workday Minnesota: Supreme Court Bans Key Tool in Immigration Raids