SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Dozens of demonstrators from a coalition of several local advocacy groups gathered outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's downtown office Thursday for a weekly "ICE Out of San Diego" protest.
Organizers say they want legal and dignified treatment of immigrants, according to Michele Cyr, president of Democratic Club of Carlsbad and Oceanside.
"Our coalition came together to organize these protests because we've got to put the heat on the administration. We have to," Cyr said. "We are speaking out for our immigrant population so that they know we are advocating for them, we're fighting for them because they are being snatched up off the street randomly, kidnapped without due process of law, illegally, and held here."
The protest was held in front of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building on Front Street with the hope that ICE officials could hear the protestors as they chanted several slogans and shared amplified messages. Several motorists honked their horns in support of the demonstration as they drove by. While the protest got loud at times, it was nonviolent and there was no noticeable police presence in the area.
"We want the law followed. We are out here peacefully. We don't want any violence with anyone," Cyr said. "I want to make that clear."
Oceanside Deputy Mayor Eric Joyce addressed the crowd, referring to ICE detentions as "state-sponsored terror."
"I represent a working-class neighborhood in a working-class city and we are under attack," Joyce said. "Once you have experienced the terror of law enforcement tearing apart your family, tearing apart your community, you live with that every single day."
Joyce told the cheering protesters that the North County cities of Oceanside and Vista have moved forward with options to bring transparency to the cities' involvement with ICE.
"Every single neighbor is on alert all the time and that is a drain on your body. It is a drain on your spirit, children carry that with them when they go to school. They perform worse. They learn less," Joyce said. "I refuse to let Oceanside be a victim, to being torn apart."
Yusef Miller, executive director of Activist San Diego and member of the North County Equity and Justice Coalition urged protestor to keep showing up to protest.
"We're about people power, not gun power. We're about democracy, not violence and terrorism. We need righteous people to stand with us ... so that we can have safety and security," Miller said. "The racial terror that our immigrant population feels is unconstitutional. It is un-American. We are here for human rights."
Alondra Alvarez of the grassroots community organization Universidad Popular is also on the executive board of San Marcos Democrats and North County Young Democrats.
"The psychological warfare is embedded in the attitude ICE agents have as they roam these halls. When they laugh loudly about yesterday's ballgame and then proceed to rip fathers away from their families, that is terror," Alvarez said. "I can't think of a more perfect embodiment of the complete and utter disregard for rule of law, for the sanctity of the courthouse and the lack of respect for human dignity, than the dirty boot marks that line the Immigration Court hallways."
"There's an anger that brews in me that I feel in all of us. But it's our responsibility to channel that anger into something bigger than ourselves," she said. "Channel that rage and advocacy and pour that passion into your communities."
The coalition also includes Indivisible 49; Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West; SEIU local 221; the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council; the Office of San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, San Diego Education Association; Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment; UC San Diego Labor Center; American Friends Service Committee; Union Del Barrio and Detention Resistance; and Change Begins With Me. ICE Out of San Diego protests are planned weekly on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon "for as long as is necessary."
The event was held one day after a shooting incident at the Dallas ICE field office in which a sniper killed one detainee and critically wounded two others, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Dallas gunman reportedly killed himself after the Wednesday incident, and no law enforcement officers were reported injured.
In response to Thursday’s demonstration, Enforcement & Removal Operations Field Officer Director Patrick Divver said in a statement: “ICE respects the constitutional right of people to peacefully protest; however, assaulting, resisting, impeding or harassing ICE officers and special agents or interfering in any way as they are executing their official duty is against the law. If any person assaults a federal law enforcement officer, they risk being prosecuted to the fullest extent of law.”
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