ICE OUT OF HOUSTON!

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have brutalized our immigrant neighbors, separated families, and sowed fear and chaos across our communities. The agency has been upending the lives of immigrants long before Trump took office for a second time last year. Over the past several decades, ICE has become the highest-funded law enforcement agency in US history—a rogue agency which terminates residents’ legal status with little to no oversight and empowers an army of masked agents to use lethal force.

Houston is home to 1.7 million immigrants, making up 24% of the population and almost a third of the city’s workforce. Immigrants make this city run, and they deserve to live, work and raise their families with dignity—not to be hunted down and locked away in detention centers. Yet, our city leads the nation in ICE arrests, in large part because of the cooperation between the federal agency and local law enforcement. The majority of immigration related arrests happen at traffic stops, where HPD sometimes waits hours for ICE to arrive. This collaboration has created an intensely hostile environment for our immigrant communities.

This hostility came to a head on July 7th, when ICE agents murdered Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a beloved father and community member, while on his way to work in the Second Ward. ICE immediately slandered Lorenzo, locked the witnesses in ICE detention, and protected the agents responsible before any investigation had taken place. For weeks, thousands of people protested at City Hall and in the streets on a daily basis to demand justice for Lorenzo and his family. This sustained public pressure led to one of Lorenzo’s passengers and witness to his murder being released from ICE custody and immediately began to dismantle DHS’ narrative about the killing. While this was a significant victory, there is much work to be done. The community still awaits the identification and prosecution of Lorenzo’s killers and the release of 2 witnesses to Lorenzo’s murder who are currently detained in Conroe, TX.

Anti-immigrant state violence has not slowed down. The Trump administration has passed down massive daily arrest quotas for ICE agents. The Department of Homeland Security has terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for most immigrants and tried to expand the ‘expedited removal’ process, placing millions more in ICE’s crosshairs. And while deportation is ostensibly ICE’s goal, many of those arrested by ICE end up detained indefinitely in a sprawling, opaque network of private prisons. Companies who operate these inhumane facilities, like CoreCivic and Geo Group, have become incredibly profitable during Trump’s war on immigrants, making money off each additional person trapped inside.

Alongside the expansion of ICE’s deportation program, Flock Automated License Plate Recognition cameras (ALPRs) have proliferated in cities across the US, providing ICE with a massive network of surveillance cameras to identify and track immigrants. Harris County has spent $7 million in taxpayer funds on contracts with Flock. With an estimated 4,000 devices spread across the greater Houston area, our home has the highest concentration of Flock cameras in the country. These AI-powered cameras track the movements of residents 24/7, and provide the data directly to law enforcement, regardless of whether any crime has been committed. ICE has leveraged its relationships with cooperative police departments to gain access to their Flock data to track down and arrest immigrants.

In Minnesota in January, we saw how a mass people’s movement could stop an entire ICE operation. 100,000 people called out of work, closed their businesses, and took to the streets in a massive display of people power. Houston is the fourth largest city in the country, and one of the most diverse. We must work immediately to build a movement capable of leveraging our collective power to put an end to ICE terror once and for all.

ICE has done nothing but tear our communities apart and line the pockets of private prison and surveillance companies. The people of Houston overwhelmingly oppose violent ICE agents, FLOCK cameras, and private prisons in our streets. We demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, an end to HPD collaboration with ICE, the removal of all ALPRs, the closure of ICE detention centers, and an end to all ICE operations in our city!