emergency response Reclaim The Streets

Between Thursday and Friday of last week, 107 residents of Santa Cruz, Watsonville, and Holister were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) officers in a sweep they called, “Operation Return to Sender”. Of the immigrants arrested, most were from Mexico, but some were also from El Salvador, Guatemala, and India.
As of September 10th, 44 people had already been deported without prior access to lawyers. The rest are currently being held in custody at I.C.E. Detention Centers. The conditions within these Detention Centers are often treacherous and barbaric. Poor medical attention has resulted in several deaths, including by suicide. Often times, basic requests for necessities like food and blankets are ignored or denied by guards. Mothers are often separated from their children, with their children being taken into State custody, leaving the mother unsure if she will ever see them again. Women are routinely assaulted by predatory I.C.E. detention officers and Homeland Security guards.
Many of those arrested in this latest attack on our communities, have lived in the United States for the majority of their lives, have homes here, and U.S. born children. Some of those being deported are being transferred to a country they have not lived in for over 30 years.

Tens of thousands of immigrants have been arrested, and hundreds have been deported this year by I.C.E. officers. This latest mass arrest is only the latest, more coordinated attack on immigrants within our communities. The capitalist system is an inherent negation of human community, leaving peoples’ lives burdened with poor working conditions, shitty wages, and the constant threat of ‘work or suffer’.
The Police State has declared on offensive against all undesirables of society. The ongoing harassment and exploitation of poor, working class communities is reflected in this most recent attack by I.C.E. authorities in our local area.
One only needs to walk down their street to realize that we live in a society in which we are treated as potential criminals. The landscape in which we tread is built for maximum social control on the part of the Police State. Constantly under surveillance via CCTV cameras (on practically every block and every intersection), we are confronted daily by the brute force of the Police State:
the illegal and unwarranted searches which have become routine, performed on random citizens; the secret service agents spying on UCSC students who organize anti-war demos; Homeland Security spending tens of thousands of dollars just to patrol Santa Cruz; FBI agents investigating graffiti and minor vandalism; the motorist pulled over by policemen for simply looking of non-white dissent or for having an older vehicle; the woman walking alone at night cornered by policemen because they suspect she may be a prostitute; the street kid or homeless person who wakes to being physically assaulted by the downtown police;
...We all have our own horror stories of harassment and assault felt at the hands of the police. Clearly, it is not only the immigrants who are considered undesirable by the cold, mechanistic hands of Capitalism...
We are all undesirables!
On September 15th, we will converge to express our utter discontent with the intrusiveness of the Police State, and all of it’s terrorizing endeavors.
The arrest of 107 immigrants was executed in the secrecy of the night in an attempt keep the government’s dirty manevuers unnoticed. It is of great importance that we do not let these unethical acts of terrorism by the State go unchallenged!
We are calling out to people from all walks of life in Santa Cruz County to join us in an emergency response Reclaim The Streets. At 5 PM on Friday, there will be a protest outside of the Government Building on Ocean and Water St. in downtown Santa Cruz. At 6 PM, we will take over the streets of downtown, we will be loud and visible (except for maybe our faces!).
Some suggestions of what to bring: masks, bullhorns, fog horns, 5 gallon-bucket drums, smoke bombs, music, signs, friends, and the willingness to take a stand against the injustices at hand!
***Also, for those who may not want to participate in a more publicly-oriented context, we suggest you apply resistance wherever applicable - on your own - to coincide with Friday’s events. Use your imagination. The possibilities are endless...