OPINION: ICE is depriving immigrants of human rights

The following letter to the editor was submitted by Medford resident Jane Collins.

To the editor:

The ICE field office in Burlington has no sign outside indicating its purpose. It’s just a featureless building at 1000 District Avenue, near the Burlington Mall. But inside, immigrants are being detained in a space not designed for human habitation. They sleep on a cold floor under Mylar blankets. There are no showers, no windows, the lights are always on, and the toilets in each cell are exposed, not private, with video cameras above them. People who have seen the facility call conditions abysmal, unsanitary, and inhumane.

On Thursday, October 9, I joined a protest outside the building. Thursday standouts are organized by Justice For All. Protests on Wednesdays started with a local group called Bearing Witness @ ICE. These demonstrations are held from 11am until 1pm, so people can come on their lunch hours. About 90 people lined the street outside ICE the day I came. Sometimes, hundreds show up. One speaker summed up our reason for being there: “We don’t need squads of goons in unmarked cars snatching people off the streets to bring them here and deport them without due process.” If anyone commits a crime, we all feel, let the police handle it. Simply being in the United States without completed paperwork should not get a person snatched off the street, separated from family and work, and deported.

The signs protesters carry are often clever and beautifully crafted, but all are serious and heartfelt. “ICE is Trump’s Gestapo.” “Kidnapping is still illegal.” “Keep the immigrants, deport the racists.” And simply, “Love your neighbor.” Many demonstrators are retirees, who might have protested war and injustice in the ‘60s. When I went, seven elders wearing paper crowns and carrying paper lamps, channeling Lady Liberty, performed a stomping dance, singing the statue’s famous inscription: “Give me your tired, your poor…”

ICE agents have been known to drive past, heckling and taking videos, but there were no negative responses when I was there. Many drivers honked in support of the protest. The town of Burlington was recently moved to call for the facility to be inspected for health code violations. People are becoming more aware that the immigrants being deported are not, as Trump claims, “the worst of the worst,” but are ordinary folks snatched from work sites, grocery stores, schools, and even immigration courts where they are trying to obtain legal status. They are entitled to due process under the law. They don’t usually get it.

Masked men who do not identify themselves, jumping out of unmarked cars, zip-tying children, tearing parents away from their families – this is not the America most of us want. We dream of a country that delivers freedom and justice for all. Meanwhile, we will continue to offer nonviolent, creative resistance to an administration that seems to think human rights are optional. We believe they are mandatory, and democracy cannot exist without them.

Peace,

Jane Collins

Medford