From the campaign to elect Eric Quezada to District 9 Supervisor
October 22, 2008
A San Francisco immigrant family, reportedly all U.S. citizens, was raided and harassed at gunpoint Wednesday by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
By day’s end, as many as 17 Bay Area residences had been raided. Several people have been detained.
At 4:30 a.m., ICE officials broke down doors, tossed around family belongings, pointed their pistol at Julio Cesar Hernandez from just a meter away, and handcuffed the adults. Hernandez’ two children, aged 4 years and 7 months old, were traumatized by the raid.
In response, District 9 Supervisorial candidate Eric Quezada is teaming up with immigrant community leaders to mobilize legal and social resources for families victimized by the raids.
“Everybody has rights, whether they’re documented or not,” said Quezada, who has helped immigrant families with housing, legal, and employment assistance for years. “This harassment of families is shameful and must be strongly condemned by local leaders.”
Quezada called for swift implementation of a Municipal ID program to protect immigrants from violence and harassment and greater funding for legal and education services to help stabilize families.
“We need to strengthen the sanctuary ordinance,” Quezada said, “and we need to see some political courage from the mayor in these moments, to stand up for what’s right.”
“We need leaders who aren’t afraid of political fallout, to stand up for immigrant communities. We need city leaders who have consistently stood by immigrant communities, which are a lifeblood of our city’s culture and economy,” Quezada added.
“I have trembling in my heart,” Hernandez told immigrant rights attorney Mark Silverman. “I told them that I am a U.S. citizen. There were about 20 law enforcement people in the house. When I talked about my civil rights, one of them laughed.”
The Hunger Site
October 23, 2008 at 6:40 pm
My guess is that these families have kids who think hanging out with gangsters make them tough and when the shit gets serious they complain “what did I do?”
It happens that government agencies bust into the wrong address and harass the neighbors of actual criminals, or the people with the same address on the next block, or the warrant was issued with the wrong address etc.. that’s not what seems to be being argued here.
It would seem feds did what they did for a reason here.
Also story of Ammianos and Maxwell’s about the poor 13 year old girl left alone last month turned out to be utterly bogus. The progressives don’t have a lot of credibility here, they are like born againers, out anti-abortioning each other around elections.
Other sources mention about a dozen state and federal groups are involved.
ICE is involved probably because they deal with federal attorneys who shared information with them and other groups. This is an odd position considering how much progressives love involving the government in every facet of peoples lives, maybe not so odd, conservatives want to run people lives but hate the government too.
Quezada wanted to beat the rest of the district nine field to the punch on this one, he wants to look like he has the worst case of sympathy addiction.
October 23, 2008 at 11:08 am
Hi Jabber-jabber, and others who may react similarly:
The fact is, innocent immigrant families (some U.S. citizens) have been caught in this dragnet. We are not defending gang violence in any way. But if this is strictly a law enforcement action, as ICE claims, ask yourself: why is ICE involved at all? Why isn’t this an FBI/DEA operation? No one has argued that ID cards keep people out of gangs – but they do promote safety by allowing immigrants to better access their legal rights. Let’s be clear: these raids have terrorized innocent families, and their children – and we shouldn’t condone that any more than we condone violent crime by anyone, gang members or otherwise.
There’s no need to bash progressives for defending immigrants’ rights, which is what our press release does clearly. The mainstream media are replete with reports focused solely on the gang aspect, with nothing about families caught in the middle. Hope you’ll give this more thought, thanks.
– Christopher Cook
October 22, 2008 at 11:08 pm
A couple of points
1. Nowhere in this so called press release does it mention the reason for the raid, if you have not found out elsewhere, it was to nab gang members.
2. It would seem that families are gang members in this crazy world.
3. Somehow ID cards keep people from being gang members.
4, Gang members should be protected by the sanctuary city ordinance.
5. gang members should be arrested at flower point instead of gun point, although a member of the in question gang killed a family by accident with a gun.
6. Progressives have been campaigning saying that they want to make the mission safer, and yet they have fits when gangsters get arrested?