Families from all over the nation went to D.C. May 17 to describe how recent raids in immigrant communities have disrupted the lives of families.

One California mom, Norma Yahira Olivedo Mejia, told about receiving a phone call saying that her husband had been arrested in a raid in Richmond. “I was seven months pregnant…and my husband was the sole provider for myself and our two-year-old daughter,” Mejia said.

“I had to go back to work to try to pay our rent and buy food for my daughter. I sold my car and had cashed out all of our children’s savings just to pay our rent. I had to leave my daughter with my parents and was separated from her during this entire time. Every night, my daughter would cry and ask, ‘When is Papi coming home?’”

Controversial raids

In the day-long hearing on Capitol Hill, Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, along with leaders from the NAACP, the National Council of Churches, and the National Organization for Women, heard testimony from families affected by recent raids conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). The hearing was part of a nationwide movement to protest “Operation Return to Sender,” the ICE program of raids to arrest undocumented immigrants. In these raids, ICE has arrested 18,147 individuals nationwide—3,132 in California—since May 2006.

According to the ICE web site, the purpose of the program is “protecting our national and border security” and “eliminat(ing) the potential threat of terrorist attacks.” But the people being arrested “are workers,” says Rosemary Moreno, a program manager at Centro La Familia in Fresno. “If (we think) picking lettuce is terrorism, we’re looking in the wrong place.”

Kids stranded

“I have seen families separated and I’ve witnessed all the trauma that it causes the community,” says Captain Alec Griffin of the Richmond Police Department. Raids have taken place in many California communities including Fresno, San Rafael, Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

In one Fresno family, says Moreno, the mother and father were both deported. Their four children were all U.S. citizens. The parents took the one- and three-year-old to Mexico and left the 11- and 15-year-old boys with their godmother.

“But the godmother is still not a parent,” says Moreno. “They miss their parents! They were asking me about going to visit them in the summer, but they are minors. Who’s going to sign for them to cross the border?”

Families without support

Sister Maureen Duignan, executive director of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, has been working with families affected by the raids, including a mother and 12-year-old son who witnessed ICE arresting the father and 18-year-old son in an early-morning raid. The mother still doesn’t know where they are. “She wonders every day, ‘How am I going to survive?’” says Duignan.

ICE picked up one San Rafael man while he was out buying milk for his two-year-old, says Elisa Simpson of the Canal Alliance, a local community organization. “His wife has lost their apartment—they’re mostly sleeping on other people’s couches.”

Kids detained

Many children are detained with their parents, despite being U.S. citizens.

Marusia Razmias, age three, is one of the children in a lawsuit filed in March against six ICE agents and the Secretary of Homeland Security. She was put into a detention center with her parents, Marisa and Sumnacal Niclescu. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the family, Marusia “is forced to wear…improper and inadequate” clothing, and the food she eats is “inedible for a three-year-old child”—she has gotten sick from drinking spoiled milk.

Community impacts

The effects of the immigration raids extend beyond the immediate family. “School administrators say the children are closing up, not wanting to talk,” says Evelyn Sanchez of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Organization (BAIRC). “They will suddenly start crying, (or) won’t go to school. They don’t know if parents will be home or not when they come home.”

In Richmond, says Duignan, “teachers have walked to children’s homes and taken the children to school because the mothers are afraid (to leave their homes).”

That fear causes “increased stress and mental health issues,” says Lourdes Carranza of Bienvenidos Family Center in East L.A. Many parents “are afraid to leave their homes, but they have to try to make a living.”

Protests increase

Not just immigrant rights groups, but many religious and political leaders are resisting or protesting the raids.

Mayors and police chiefs in cities from Maywood to Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as religious leaders including the Cardinal of the L.A. Catholic Archdiocese, have publicly stated they will not cooperate with the raids.

Immigrant rights groups have held many public demonstrations, including protests in many California cities on May 1. Community organizing groups including the Center for Community Change and the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO) have joined the campaign against the raids.

“No matter how we feel about immigration reform,” says Reverend Anna B. Lange-Soto of El Buen Pastor Episcopal Church, “leaving children abandoned and violating a person’s constitutional rights are wrong.”

Calls for change

• Stop the raids, say some organizations including the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which sponsored the May 17 hearing at the Capitol For info: http://fairimmigration.org
  
  
• Protect individual and family rights, say organizations including the Canal Alliance, which has developed recommendations for change, such as:
  * Protect the rights of people being detained
  * Arrest only people named on ICE warrants
  * Provide contact information to family and friend

For info: www.canalalliance.org/Imm_Recomendations.pdf

Immigrants Rights organizations

• CHIRLA, 888-6-CHIRLA (888-624-4752), www.chirla.org
• Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, 510-839-7598, www.immigrantrights.org
• National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, 510-465-1984, www.nnirr.org

Resources for families: Be prepared

Immigrant rights and community organizations have prepared information for vulnerable families about how to prepare for a possible raid by ICE. See: www.immigrantrights.org/Raids_document.pdf

• Know your rights, especially the right to remain silent and to refuse to sign anything without consulting a lawyer.
  
  Know-your-rights cards available at: www.canalalliance.org/Imm_KYRCardEsp.pdf (Spanish); www.canalalliance.org/Imm_KYR_English.pdf (English)
  
  
• Sign a notarized statement giving someone you trust the right to care for your children. Sample form at: www.canalalliance.org/Imm_Guardianship_Form.pdf

Extra resources from the Children’s Advocate bulletin (updated 4-08)

• Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children, from the Foundation for Child Development, discusses the impact that recent ICE worksite raids have had on the children of undocumented workers. Finds that the children experienced family separation, economic hardship, schooling interruptions, and mental trauma.
  
  
• The Lost Children, an article from the March 27th New Yorker, describes the detention of immigrant families in a former prison and the impact of the prison-style conditions on children. Reports that the children were depressed and fearful, though an ACLU lawsuit successfully pushed for changes.

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