Operation Streamline Part Two

Hello again, friends,

My first blog post about Operation Streamline was very heavy. And long. I hope you stuck with me through it, but I understand if it was overwhelming in length and/or emotional weight. If you missed my last post, you should probably at least skim it so you have background for this one - here it is: Operation Streamline Part One

If you think Streamline is unjust and should end...

What can you do? Sign and share this petition: EndStreamline.org. Really. Even if you feel like your 30 seconds is meaningless, for some politicians to see thousands of people care enough about this issue to put their name out there, that can hold serious weight. Your thirty seconds means something. If it moves you, please sign and share.

If you need more information (AKA more of my efforts to convince you Streamline and the criminalization of migration is wrong...): 

If our justice system targeted drug-related and violent crimes separately from immigration violations, we could more effectively prosecute individuals we consider more of a "threat" to society than migrants whose singular offense is crossing a border without proper documentation. Criminal courts should focus on the first class of crimes rather than economic refugees - that's true safety. 

I'm sure many of you have heard the stat that the US prison system houses more prisoners than the rest of the world's developed countries combined. And we call ourselves "the land of the free." Anyways... Criminalizing immigration with an already-overwhelmed court system, federal prisons are now 2/3 immigrants, and Streamline fuels the private prison industry because the government has found it more efficient to contract out prison infrastructure to industry professionals than build more federal prisons.

Florence, AZ is a city in the middle of nowhere whose economy is founded on the prison system. There are several detention facilities in that one city, including one federal and others private. Two private prison industry giants are the Geo Group and CCA, both of which have been accused of less-than-humane conditions inside their facilities' walls. I will not go into that more here, but one defense lawyer quipped, "CCA has built private prisons all over the country and they pay no property taxes - they're like churches!" He further went on, "People have to start going bankrupt for things to change... California is going bankrupt and up there in their budget is prison costs..."

Another related fun fact: Congress demands that every single night, 34,000 beds must be filled in immigration detention facilities with the Detention Bed Mandate (read this for more info), further perpetuating and incentivizing the criminalization of migration and private prison profits.

Is this the society that we want? Is this the economy that we want - our government paying corporations to keep 34,000 economic refugees under lock and key, when we could surely use those resources for the common good - education, jobs, etc.? Not to mention the expenses and environmental impacts of deportations (and that's just the systemic political/economic look... I could go on for days about impacts on our familial and social fabrics).   

I began to mention this at the end of the previous post, but on October 11th, people in Tucson did something about Streamline. A group of activists of mixed documentation statuses intended to make a statement to stop Streamline in Tucson for a day, and they did it!

The planning happened in secret, and they were so well-organized. A couple activists were able to stop the buses taking the 70 people to be Streamlined right by the federal courthouse, and others rushed to circle themselves around the bus wheels and confounded authorities by the materials they used to reinforce their linked arms. They remained there connected for hours, inhaling fumes as the buses were still running (thankfully maintaining the air conditioning for the people aboard! But who really knows what was going through their minds as they saw all these crazy people yelling and chaining themselves to their bus!).

A group of protesters joined those locked around the buses doing the actual obstruction of Streamline, and soon, the street was blocked off. Another group of prepared activists also chained themselves to the gate on the side of the street, referred to later as the "gaters."

And Operation Streamline was stopped for the day. Due to the protest, the defendants were not able to meet with their attorneys in the morning, so they could not be prosecuted in the afternoon. 18 doing civil disobedience were arrested. More on this later. 


Here's a follow-up article including a more comprehensive look at Operation Streamline history and practice: Huffington Post

Here are a few more from the day:
Activists chain themselves to ‘deportation bus’ in Tucson, ask Obama to halt all deportations
Arizona Immigration Protesters Block Court Proceedings
Lying under tires, immigrant rights activists block Operation Streamline bus

If you'd like to check out any video footage, here's a couple options:  
Shutting Down Operation Streamline; Tucson, AZ Oct 11, 2013 
25 minutes of video coverage: ColorLines

And the following is my coverage of the event! Yes, I was there, at least for part. I had to go to the food bank for our program in the morning, but with my arms full of peanut butter jars, Amy Beth called me to get down there as soon as I finished the appointment. So I hustled home, threw the perishable items in the fridge, and called her again to figure out exactly where they were. And I hopped on my bike.

When I got there, the buses were already blocked off. I innocuously asked police officers what was going on, and they said something cryptic, not that they were closing the street because of a protest. So I biked around the side of the federal courthouse, parked my bike in their bike rack, and strolled through the parking lot, around to the side to find the "gaters" and their supporters.

 

By this time, the protest was in full force, with chants, and signs, and the whole shebang.

One chant: "What do we do when our community's under attack? Stand up fight back!"

A peek of the "gaters" from the side. They linked themselves to each other with PVC pipe, and the people anchoring on the ends locked their necks to the gate with bike locks.

Another chant: "CCA go away!"

My fellow chanters - Ali (Tucson YAV alum and now our steering committee president) and Amy Beth - one of my current YAV housemates!

Female demonstrators who had performed something earlier in the day before we got there.

The other side of the street: members of the media, other onlookers, and some people getting some shade.

This issue connects a couple generations. The woman to the left in the left photo is Southside pastor Alison Harrington. And the woman to the right in the right photo is Margo Cowan, Pima County Public Defender. Both are inspiring and very active in the community.

"We pay 17 million a month to CCA. The Post Office costs 14 million a year."

Different chanters took turns to keep the energy alive.

 Here's the side where I was with Ali and Amy Beth most of the time.

"TUSD (Tucson Unified School District) closed 11 schools for budget cuts. $17 mil a month for Streamline."

Officials unsure of what to do about the human chain.

Marshalls begin closing the gate - no Streamline buses today!

"Up up with liberation, down down with deportation!"

Marshalls start to move in from across the street.

Keeping the "gaters" well-hydrated from hours in the sun.

Awaiting news.

Chanting "Undocumented and unafraid; Sin papeles y sin miedo!"

Housemate Steph! Rock it.

And then...... the announcement came! "The judge has gone home for today."

Streamline has been shut down by the people.

What a glorious moment, "Streamline shutdown by the people," placed there by dearest activist and Southside Worker Center coordinator, Raul Alcaraz-Ochoa.

Mission accomplished.

"Why can't we live together?"

Official message at 12:35pm: Operation Streamline has officially been shut down for the day - the judge that runs the courts went home, so there would be no deportations through Streamline today.

The human chain stood up to start removing their reinforcing equipment following an agreement with the marshals, hoping to save the equipment for future actions...

And then police and marshals moved in on the crowd to make everyone disperse, taking away the chained people after they unlinked themselves.

The crowd swarmed in to get pictures, and some were shoved back by police.

Police took away the civilly disobedient, and supporters followed.

Law enforcement and a protester talking it out.

"La lucha no será en vano" - "The fight will not be in vain."

The scene through the fence behind the federal courthouse.

Accessibility to technology makes it so easy these days for people with access to their pocket-sized camera or smartphone to grab shots and be their own media to spread the word in addition to the pro cameras behind them.

And here's proof that I was here!

No doubt, I am excited to have been a part of this historic day. It feels good to do something. But I also must challenge myself about what I am doing in response to the injustice I have witnessed. I went to a protest where several people took radical action for what they believed, and I stood with them. I was one part of keeping them energized with my voice. I was educating myself. I am now writing about it to whomever feels like reading this.

I am the first one to admit I am still in the midst of discernment about the concept of doing civil disobedience, of intentionally breaking a law to make a point. As much as I have heard my amazing home church community talk about and value getting arrested to stand up for justice, this is still a very abstract concept to me. I am one to value the social contract, where at the most simplistic basis of political science, we enter into a pact as a collective of individuals because it is a more effective way to get resources and protection than fending for ourselves.

When we enter into the pact, that means the collective sets the rules. How those rules are determined is also set by the collective. Everyone should play by the rules, and if an individual or group does not agree with the rules set by the collective, it is their responsibility as a member still to work within the rules to change the one they disagree with or suck it up (to put it bluntly).

But if the game, or the system itself is unjust, does it then follow that it is always right to work outside the system? Or is there still value in working with and even working within existing structures to change minds and practices for the long haul? 

My issue is when we pick and choose what rules we want to play by when we are enjoying the rights and privileges of the social contract. The social contract does not mean we have to agree with everything set by the system, but if we don't, we either accept it or do something about it with your fellow people within the system you all have agreed to. Granted, that assumes all individuals still believe that system as a whole makes them better off, otherwise you all scrap it and make something new, or you take your leave from the proverbial island. 

I am nowhere near the first person to be asking these questions, but when injustice is systemic, I still have to ask myself "What is my role in the struggle?" My first instinct is always to work with the system in place, with intentionally disobeying the law as the last resort. I still have more processing to do, though, and I am going to leave it up to the individual to figure out if/when they find breaking the law the best course of action to work for the arc of history to bend towards justice.

In this specific case, what was the goal of the protest and the action, and through that action, was the goal achieved? The direct action was to stop two buses and to close a gate with the larger intention of shutting down the judicial process that is Operation Streamline. On that single day in Tucson, Operation Streamline was shut down. And these actions in fact started a ripple of protests around the country to shut down local ICE offices to prevent deportations.
 
There is give and take, and we all have to look at if we want our strategy to follow Machiavellian's "ends justify the means." We disrupted the lives of government officials probably just trying to get through the day and believing they were doing the right thing. And the 70 people who would have been streamlined were apparently deported more swiftly than typical cases because of the action. Attorney says border-crossers at center of Tucson protest were deported.

Did we do the right thing for those 70 individuals in the midst of the broader quest for an end to Streamline? For me personally, we were on such a high from actually shutting down Streamline for the day but the wind was taken out of my sails when I read those 70 people were quickly deported. They were not criminally prosecuted, and without but their deportations were expedited. Deportations keep happening, and so it goes.

 

All is not lost with those 70 individuals, however. October 24th, there was a press conference as the Pima County public defenders' office starts to make its case against felony charges for the 18 activists who blocked the two Streamline buses.

 The view from the 21st floor in downtown Tucson!

Defendants gather. 18 activists were charged with felonies in helping 70 people avoid criminal immigration charges.

Part of the defense strategy is putting a call out to find those 70 individuals from the buses to tell their stories, attorney Margo Cowan explains here. "They were deported quicker than we have ever seen... But we know those on the buses. We know their stories." The public defenders' office is committed to finding the humanity in this situation, contacting organizations and shelters along the border.

 

She added, "There is some incredibly pressing human condition to make you decide to cross the desert. Your removal instead of prosecution probably ranks pretty high in your life. They're talking to others about what happened - their lives have been changed and we're confident they'll call us... If they're in Mexico and it's necessary for them to come to Tucson [for the trial], we'll ask for them to be paroled in."

In their defense, several of the activists shared testimonies of undocumented individuals and friends they have been affected by. This man talked about a father named Claudio who was active in his daughter's education. Claudio was deported and picked up in the desert on his way back to his family. His daughter dropped out of school one month from graduation. They were not on the bus, but they are community members, just like those individuals who were about to be Streamlined. On those buses were mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, grandparents and grandchildren, children and friends, just like the people we know in our own communities.

The aftermath of Shutdown Streamline: Tucson Edition:
When I took my Carpe Diem delegation down to Nogales in late November, on our visit to the Kino Border Initiatives' comedor, a cafeteria run by the Catholic organization that provides free meals to migrants, I noticed the sign on the wall saying if you were one of the 70 stopped Streamline deportations, to call a certain number. West, our contact there, said they were indeed doing what they could on their end to find the individuals who were deported that day. 

As for the activist defendants, felony charges have been dropped, but the cases are still in process.

And since this epic day in Tucson, there has been a wave of "Shutdown ICE" protests around the country - starting in Phoenix and heading to California, New Mexico, New Jersey... Monday, December 16th, there were actually protests simultaneously in DC and LA!

Maybe civil disobedience isn't your thing. Maybe it is. I will leave that decision up to you. What every single person who wants Streamline to end can do though, is sign and share this petition: EndStreamline.org. Really.