Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sylvia Knight, of Burlington, an Earth community advocate and researcher who worked at University Libraries and as an individual volunteer researcher on pesticide issues. She was also a member of the Charlotte Conservation Commission for eight years.
[I] find TJ Donovan’s comments troubling when he states that “Last week’s arrests fell well within federal authority, and that he saw no evidence that ICE was targeting activists.” (VTDigger 3/20/17).
Well within federal authority? What warrants did ICE have to arrest the three activists? What happened to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a fundamental provision of human rights in this country? It states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
No evidence of targeting? Aren’t lawyers trained to look beyond appearances? Mr. Donovan says he “saw” no evidence of targeting, but did he inquire for background on the arrests? Friends of the movement know that ICE agents had actually told two previous detainees (both activists with Migrant Justice) that Balcazar was the next to be arrested. Excuse me, but that’s not targeting?
Just what is ICE’s purpose? To blindly follow orders regardless of consequences? (Such blind obedience to orders has been disastrous in the past.) To undermine respect for law and justice, to discourage people from appearing for court hearings, and degrade public safety? To intimidate workers caught between unjust systems who refuse to be dehumanized by oppressive working and living conditions on the one hand but find themselves caught in the crosshairs of state and federal agencies acting on shallow legalisms, fear and xenophobia? Or perhaps to fill the daily bed quota of 34,000 immigrants in for-profit prisons, a policy called for in federal budget legislation, driven by lobbyists with for-profit prisons, not by national security? (1)
In earlier years, being in the U.S. without documentation was a civil offense, not a criminal offense. Current policy greatly expands categories of undocumented people to be targeted for imprisonment and deportation, to the extent that simply being an immigrant with brown skin in this country leaves one vulnerable to being criminalized, torn from livelihood, family and friends, imprisoned more than once, shackled with chains in terror, with loss of human dignity.
A nation that supports such behavior and policies is losing its soul, forgetting that our ancestors came here without documentation and usurped land from the original inhabitants. We lose part of our souls when we create categories of “others” whom we then feel free to persecute. Our economic systems are using people of color without legal status (and have done so since this country was born) for essentially slave labor to benefit those with corporate, economic, institutional or state power. Laws and policies made by those in power to benefit themselves and to control others who are not in power often violate basic human values such as respect, dignity, personal boundaries, human sanctity, and family.
Current policy greatly expands categories of undocumented people to be targeted for imprisonment and deportation, to the extent that simply being an immigrant with brown skin in this country leaves one vulnerable to being criminalized, torn from livelihood, family and friends, imprisoned more than once, shackled with chains in terror, with loss of human dignity.
I call on people of faith to affirm the sacred dignity of immigrants in our midst, in our industries and in our civil life, whether or not they are “documented.” I believe we are called to name injustices, and to resist them. Do you care about the neighbors who produce your food? No one is illegal in the Kin-dom of God, the realm of justice for all.
I call on Attorney General TJ Donovan to perceive the troubling tendencies in today’s legal systems stemming from fear and xenophobia, and to stand against the erosion of basic human rights in the current political environment. I thank him for his decision to include Mr. Balcazar in his Commission on Immigration in their efforts to understand more deeply the work and struggles of those caught between an industry that depends on their labor but often treats them unjustly due to their undocumented status, and international trade agreements that undermine the economy of the countries from which they migrate to find work and life in the United States.
Lastly, I see the work of Migrant Justice as revealing and transformative in our times: They work to expose and to resist injustices in our food systems, which pay corporations well but use their workers and farmers with disrespect and injustice. They are also working courageously to create new food systems in which farmers and farmworkers are treated with respect and dignity.
Let’s open our hearts, learn about compassion and justice from our immigrant neighbors, and be with them in solidarity. They have much to teach us.
