Southern Poverty Law Center Files Suit Against ICE

The Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] has filed suit against U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement [ICE] in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The suit was filed on behalf of five United States citizens, and alleges that ICE agents were guilty of unconstitutional and racist actions. They are asking the court to approve the suit as a class-action suit on behalf of Georgia Latinos.

The SPLC says:

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents illegally detained, searched and harassed Latinos solely because of their appearance -- in violation of their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights -- during an extensive campaign to drive them out of the area.

The plaintiffs are five U.S. citizens of Mexican descent and a landlord who suffered damage to his rental properties when ICE agents broke into numerous trailers that were rented by Latinos."

SPLC founder Morris Dees said, "It's outrageous that this could occur in America today. These ICE agents swooped into town, armed with everything but search warrants, and started rounding up people -- citizens and non-citizens alike -- merely because they had brown skin. Imagine the fallout if this had happened to white people."

The SPLC described the actions this way:

"The series of raids across several towns in at least three counties began on September 1 and lasted for several weeks. The raids, involving dozens of ICE agents, were ostensibly intended to locate undocumented immigrants who worked at a poultry plant in Stillmore, a town of about 1,000 people in Emanuel County.

But rather than conduct a raid only at the plant, the agents fanned out across residential areas -- stopping motorists, breaking into people's homes and threatening people with tear gas and guns. Hundreds of people were terrorized. Many actually fled into the woods."

Mary Bauer, head of the SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project, says, "These kinds of dragnet tactics are completely inconsistent with our constitutional guarantees. Just because you are poor and have brown skin doesn't mean you don't have rights under the law. We want to make sure this doesn't happen again. Many children continue to live in fear that they will be taken away by immigration officials merely because of the color of their skin."

The SPLC goes on to state:

"Those children include one of the plaintiffs, Marie Justeen Mancha, a 15-year-old U.S. citizen who lives in Reidsville, in Tattnall County. She was alone in her bedroom getting ready for school when she heard men in another room yelling 'Police! Illegals!' Some two dozens agents surrounded her home as she was detained and interrogated by armed agents who never showed a search warrant.

Her mother, Maria Christina Martinez, a U.S. citizen born in Florida, is also a plaintiff.

Another plaintiff, Ranulfo Perez, was standing outside of his home in Adrian, in Emmanuel County, when he was suddenly surrounded by approximately 15 men holding guns. One of the men grabbed Perez by the shirt, jammed his gun into his side and threw him against his truck. The agent twisted Perez's arm behind his back and held him that way for 10 minutes while other agents searched his home and property. The agent then suggested Perez and his family should leave the area for two weeks to avoid any more such incidents."

It looks like Georgie's disregard for the law and the Constitution has filtered down to the street level agents. Doesn't it make you feel safe to know that federal agents no longer believe they need a warrant to break down the door of an American citizen?

Our forefathers included such things as habeas corpus, probable cause, and search warrants in our Constitution, because they knew future governments would try to deny any rights not specifically written into the Constitution. But how could they have predicted someone like Georgie, who simply doesn't care if something's unconstitutional or not?

We must send Georgie a message on November 7th by voting his Republican buddies out of office. We must let him know that we will no longer allow American citizens to be treated this way.