U.S. Rep. Summer Lee was among demonstrators Sunday in Pittsburgh calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished.
“You can’t reform oppression. You can’t reform hatred. You have to abolish it. You have to extinguish it wherever it exists,” said Lee, D-Swissvale, standing in the snow at Three Rivers Heritage Park near the Hot Metal Street Bridge.
“We are here to say that ICE won’t get away with this,” she said. “We won’t stop at abolishing ICE. We will hold everybody accountable who contributed to this unjust system, everybody who has contributed to kidnapping our neighbors, to harming our loved ones and our family members.”
Several community organizations, including Indivisible Pittsburgh and Casa San Jose, organized the “Pittsburgh Says: ICE Out!” demonstration that included a march down Hot Metal Street to East Carson Street, and then to the corner of Sarah and Sidney streets, near a building housing ICE offices. About 450 people were estimated to have attended.
It comes after several ICE-related incidents in and around the Pittsburgh area, including the release Saturday of Jose Flores, a man from Nicaragua who ICE agents arrested in front of his Oakmont home, and the arrest of Brentwood resident Maklim Gomez Escalante, from El Salvador, who ICE agents arrested at a district court in Baldwin on Jan. 20.
It’s where, at 8:30 a.m. every Friday morning, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden and other organizations conduct a prayerful presence outside the ICE offices.
The Sisters of St. Joseph founded Casa San Jose, a nonprofit offering support and resources for Latino immigrants and Pittsburgh’s Latino community.
“It’s one of the proudest moments in our history that we stand by the undocumented and immigrants and provide what they need and advocate that they may not be abused or arrested,” Sister Barbara Finch said.
At 4:30 p.m. Feb. 18, the beginning of Lent, Finch said they plan to be at the federal building in Downtown Pittsburgh to ask the federal government “to fast from their oppression and their violence toward our sisters and brothers.
“I would like to see these numbers at the federal building and really impress upon them, you want our vote, you better change,” Finch said.
Those concerned were also urged to express support for a proposed Allegheny County Council ordinance that would prevent county resources from helping ICE in any way other than what is required by state or federal laws.
Council member Lissa Shulman, D-Hampton, is one of six council members who introduced the measure Jan. 27. Its passage is not a sure thing, she said.
“We’ve seen many communities across our state and country pass these kinds of ordinances,” she said. “It would ensure that county data, data that we typically collect in order to help better provide services to those who need it, does not expose immigration status and lead to our community members and neighbors unfairly being targeted by ICE.”
Shulman encouraged county residents to call and email county council, and to comment at a public meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the county courthouse, which requires registering 24 hours in advance.
“Let’s continue to make sure that we are raising our voices and letting folks know that we will not tolerate ICE continuing to endanger our families, our freedoms and our futures,” she said.
Among the speakers at Sunday’s demonstration was Kevin Mosley, who retired from the Pennsylvania State Police after 20 years.
Police officers, he said, are trained to understand the Constitution and peoples’ civil rights.
“I understood that there was no way in hell that I was going to violate anyone’s civil rights. As an African-American, I understand at what cost those rights came at,” he said. “Those things came at the blood, sweat and tears of my ancestors, your ancestors. The people that came before us, they would want us to respect one another. They would want me and all law enforcement officers to respect you, that we would hope you would respect us.”
The Trump administration’s expansion of ICE and border patrol through expanded use of 287(g) programs has placed law enforcement in “untenable positions,” Mosley said.
A 287(g) agreement “allows local officers to enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties, such as identifying an alien at a DUI checkpoint and sharing information directly with ICE,” according to an ICE website. Springdale Borough is among 53 municipal or county agencies that have such an agreement with ICE.
“It’s all meant to terrify us,” Mosley said. “Ultimately it is extortion. It is about getting voter information. It is about keeping Trump in power. That’s what this is about.”
River Sepinuck, activism chair with CMU Democrats, said this year’s primary and general elections are important, and urged people to get involved and to vote.
“We could take back the Senate. We are going to take back the house,” he said. “We can get rid of the corrupt anti-American administration who’s destroying the country I’ve lived in my entire life. We can get rid of the rot in the system, the corruption, the hatred. We can make America what it should be, what we said we were the entire time. We can be a nation for all.”
A third No Kings protest is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28 at the City-County Building in Downtown Pittsburgh, said Tracy Baton, director of Indivisible Pittsburgh. The last No Kings protest, in October, drew a crowd of 15,000.
Mosley called on citizens to lean on local, state and federal representatives, “and say we’re not going to put up with this.
“Ultimately this must end lest we lose our democracy. Abolish ICE and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) as it exists,” he said. “God Bless America, just not the one we live in now.”
