Recently in Tucson:
“We’re being attacked,” Dad yelled into the phone at 6:30am to Margo Cowan, Justice For All’s founder. “They’re beating on the door. They’re beating the door down!”
ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and 30 other law enforcement officers broke the door off its frame. They had no search warrant. They proceeded to arrest Dad and placed Mom in handcuffs in the back of a border patrol vehicle and then tore the house apart emptying drawers and throwing everything on the floor looking for ???
Mom and Dad have been in the country 23 years. They have four American-born children—the oldest will be 21 and the youngest is still in elementary school. Dad and Mom created their own successful business, pay taxes, have no criminal history, and own their own home.
Dad is now in the Eloy Detention Center fearing deportation while a pro-bono attorney is trying to get him out. Mom, a diabetic, was released from her handcuffs and remains at home. The whole family is living in fear they will not be reunited.
This is just one of the many heartbreaking stories that we’re hearing every day.
These unprecedented attacks on our immigrant brothers and sisters in the Tucson community—and in the nation—are devastating. As we write this letter, long-time residents of Tucson are being forcibly pulled away from their families, neighborhoods, churches and workplaces for no reason.
They are certainly NOT criminals and they are certainly NOT a threat to community safety and security. They are in fact the backbone of our communities and their families and lives are being irreparably ripped apart by the heartless administration’s CRUEL anti-immigrant policies.
We are asking our community to support a ballot initiative that gives Pima County residents facing detention or deportation access to a public defender. If approved by voters, the initiative would establish the Office of Immigration Representation (to be funded by sliding scale fees and public and private funding), to protect due process and fundamental rights, fight poverty, and safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of our residents.