Photo Essay: Immigration Raids Spark Protests

On May 2, the day after nationwide marches clamoring for immigrant rights, federal authorities detained 64 workers from taquerias across the San Francisco Bay Area. In response, hundreds of activists have poured into Bay Area streets to protest the raids.

May 12, 2008

 

Two hundred protesters from churches, unions, and community groups marched and picketed outside the office of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in downtown San Francisco on May 5, Cinco de Mayo.

 

On Friday, May 2, the day after marches took place across the country for immigrants' rights, immigration agents arrested 64 workers at Los Balazos taquerias throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Most of the employees had no criminal records, and were arrested for the crime of working to support their families.

 

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors first declared it a "sanctuary city" in 1989. The "sanctuary" designation means the local government refuses to allow the use of municipal resources for the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

 

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums joined unions and community groups at Stonehurst Elementary School after agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up earlier in the morning. Dellums and others protested the ICE activity in Oakland, which is a sanctuary city, just days after marches took place across the country for immigrants' rights.

 

Dellums talked with concerned parents, as worried children left school at the end of the day.


David Bacon's photographs and stories are available on his website: http://dbacon.igc.org, where he can be reached at dbacon( AT )igc.org. He is the author of The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) and the photodocumentary book on indigenous migration to the U.S.: Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006). His next book, coming in September 2008, from Beacon Press is called, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.

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