• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

RVA Mag

Richmond, VA Culture & Politics Since 2005

Menu RVA Mag Logo
  • community
  • MUSIC
  • ART
  • EAT DRINK
  • GAYRVA
  • POLITICS
  • PHOTO
  • EVENTS
  • MAGAZINE
RVA Mag Logo
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Sponsors

The ICE Agents Who Look Like Local Police

Henry Clayton Wickham | September 16, 2020

Topics: coronavirus, COVID-19, Devuelvanme Edwin, Free Them All VA, ICA-Farmville, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Josh Ayala, Kenny Boddye, Legal Aid Justice Center, Leonina Arismendi, Luis Valladares-Cruz, Maria Mayorquin

In Prince William County, ICE agents that are visually indistinguishable from local police have been arresting undocumented immigrants. For activists and local elected officials, this comes across as an unjust abuse of power.

Standing on a NoVA sidewalk in his Lady Gaga t-shirt on a hot afternoon, Josh Ayala told a small crowd about how ICE agents took his boyfriend. The agents, he said, presented themselves as local police officers.

“I just want to say fuck ICE with all my heart and all my strength,” Ayala told his fellow protesters on August 23rd. Around fifteen people gathered on a roadside in Woodbridge, VA, near the site of the incident, to protest the detention of Ayala’s boyfriend, Luis Valladares-Cruz, an undocumented immigrant who has been in Prince William County since he was 7. They carried signs and chanted slogans like, “Brick by brick, wall by wall, fire to the prisons and free them all.” One woman carried an American flag and wore an American flag headscarf; another wore a shirt that read, “Cops give pigs a bad name.“

“I would have never let Luis out of my vehicle knowing that they were going to take him,” Ayala told me later in an interview. “I feel like I was robbed.”

Josh Ayala speaks at an August 23 protest. Photo by Henry Clayton Wickham.

Ayala says that, when he saw blue lights flashing in his rearview and pulled over, he and Valladares-Cruz felt they had no reason to worry. Ayala trusted local law enforcement. They are here to protect us and “get the bad guys,” he told me. But the officer who approached the vehicle, wearing a vest with the word “POLICE” and a nondescript gold badge on his chest, was not a Prince William County police officer. In Ayala’s account, the agent said Ayala’s car matched the description of a vehicle associated with a crime in the area.

“We innocently gave them our IDs,” Ayala told me, “thinking, ‘Okay, they’re officers investigating a crime in the area. Let’s help them out.'”

A short time later, Valladares-Cruz was taken into ICE custody, and Ayala was left in shock on the side of the road — “I was literally, like, shaking,” he said. Three weeks later, he is still coming to terms with Valladares-Cruz’s absence. Since Valladares-Cruz was taken, Ayala told me, he has taken to sleeping on the couch. “Now, if I’m in the [bedroom] by myself, I feel like he should be in the living room,” Ayala said. “But in reality, when I come out he’s not there.”

Meanwhile, Valladares-Cruz is confined to an ICE detention center in Caroline County, where a man was recently brutalized after expressing frustration with the prison’s quarantine procedure. When Ayala and I spoke last Friday, Valladares-Cruz had been quarantined in an isolation cell for weeks. Ayala said he complains that he has no distractions or entertainment — “no books, no paper, no pen, nothing” — and compares the prison’s mushy meals to “cat food.” Ayala said Valladares-Cruz was still using communal spaces for dining and showering, which brings the efficacy of the facility’s quarantine measures into question.

At the protest on the 23rd, activists, people directly impacted by immigrant incarceration, and local officials echoed many of Ayala’s concerns. María Mayorquin, a small woman in a canary-yellow blouse, addressed the crowd in Spanish while holding up a crumpled sheet with her husband Edwin Garcia Rogel’s coronavirus test results. Beside her, activist Leonina Arismendi stood translating, a megaphone perched on their shoulder. Rogel has tested positive for the coronavirus along with over 90 percent of the other people detained in ICA-Farmville, and his wife has started a campaign to free him called Devuelvánme Edwin.

María Mayorquin (center) speaks about her husband’s detention in ICA Farmville. Photo via Free Them All VA.

Two local officials, including Occoquan District Supervisor Kenny Boddye, spoke also spoke to the crowd. Boddye described Valladares-Cruz’s detention as an “abduction,” and referenced the recent expiration of Prince William County’s 287G, an agreement that allowed local law enforcement to arrest people and turn them over to ICE. Since 2018, ICE has deported almost 600 local residents under the agreement. “We, all of us, ran last year on saying that this is no longer the Prince William County of the past, where we just rounded people up based on where they come from the color of their skin,” Boddye said. 

According to Valladares-Cruz’s lawyer, Astrid Lockwood with Legal Aid Justice Center, Prince William County’s immigrant community is still recovering from the devastating effects of 287G. Since Donald Trump’s election, she said, “there has absolutely been an increase in the authority that’s been given to [ICE officers] and their ability to act on it with impunity, knowing that there is essentially nothing we can use to say you can’t do this. Because then we’ll just get the pushback from their superiors, and their superiors’ superiors.”

One form this impunity has taken, according to Lockwood, is the restriction of phone private phone call access for clients. According to Lockwood, it can be “almost impossible” to get a private phone call with a client. It took her two weeks to get in touch with Valladares-Cruz.

Although Lockwood could not speaking directly about Valladares-Cruz’s case, she said she has seen a number of videos where ICE offers have “POLICE” printed in large letters across their chest, with only a small patch reading “ERO” for Enforcement and Removal Operations — hardly something you would notice in a moment of fear. “The average person doesn’t know what ERO stands for,” Lockwood said. “All they know is there’s a police officer dragging them out of their car.”

Protesters in Woodbridge on August 23. Photo by Henry Clayton Wickham.

In a statement, a press person for ICE told RVA Mag that “[ICE Officers] did not claim to represent any other law enforcement agency or purpose,” and that, though they travel in unmarked vehicles, “they can easily be identified by their agency-branded badges and protective gear.”

Lockwood, on the other hand, thinks that ICE agent’s lack of transparency is often deliberate. “The cruelty is the point,” she said. “The fear is the point.” As for Ayala, he says his views on law enforcement have shifted since the Valladares-Cruz was taken. “I can’t even look at [police] the same way because of knowing that they allow these individuals to come here and basically act as them,” he said, “I feel like my human rights as a citizen, they were violated.”

For now, Ayala is doing the best he can to support Valladares-Cruz while processing his own emotions. Last week, he said his grandfather was ill and two of his and Valladares-Cruz’s pet quails died. But he has decided it’s best not to tell Valladares-Cruz about such problems, given his already depressing reality.

“I don’t even cry anymore,” Ayala told me.

Top Photo via Free Them All Virginia

Op-Ed: The Militarization of the Border, Criminalization of Migration, and Policing of Poverty

Madison Sweitzer & Ben Blevins | September 9, 2020

Topics: black lives matter, border wall, Colonialism, Highland Support Project, ICE, income inequality, Muna Hijazi, settler states

For Madison Sweitzer and Ben Blevins of the Highland Support Project, buildup of militarized border protections, overpolicing of poor and minority populations, and massive wealth inequality all have a common root: the US’s colonialist settler-state mentality.

The United States is a settler state. Settlers enter into the territory and make it their own, in contrast with immigrants, who assimilate into their new home’s laws and customs. This situation is not unique to the United States. This same dynamic is found in Israeli settlers displacing Palestinians, the Spanish conquest of Indigenous lands in Guatemala, and the forced assimilation of the Uyghurs in China. In all of these cases, the settler-state status has led to aggressive and malicious attempts to eliminate or forcefully assimilate the Indigenous populations.

Today in the United States, the settler state dynamic continues to manifest itself by pushing out unwanted populations through the militarization of borders, the criminalization of migration, and the policing of poverty. These tactics correlate with the increasing wealth gap, and will only be further exacerbated by climate change. 

The militarized US border was fueled last year by President Trump’s $11 billion investment, according to NPR. The border is a major economic enterprise, with private military companies such as General Dynamics successfully lobbying for $113 million, according to Yes! Magazine. This massive influx in funding is what allows the current militarization: prisons are being converted into large-scale detention centers that are trapping migrants en masse, with more than 50,000 people held in ICE facilities, 20,000 held in customs and border protection facilities, and more than 11,000 children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to The Atlantic. The incredible amount of funding for the border will only continue to shape it into a violent and aggressive militarized zone.

This imprisonment of individuals and families at the border has also criminalized the action of migration. Asylum laws state that migrants escaping conflict should qualify as refugees and receive a protected status upon arrival, but this is not the reality. According to the Campaign to End Immigrant Family Detention, the enactment of the Secure Border Initiative in 2005 pushed the Department Of Homeland Security to shift from a “catch and release” to “catch and return” tactic, where detention and deportation have become the norm with little regard given to the possibility of valid asylum claims. Attempting to migrate to the US means nearly guaranteed imprisonment in a detention facility with limited freedom and poor access to healthcare, education, and proper conditions for children. 

As military forces at the borders control unwanted populations, police officers around the country are on a similar track with their control over populations in poverty. The book Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter explains that as police take on zero tolerance crime policies, they can drive out unwanted populations from a community. With zero-tolerance policing, officers use stop and search, a key tactic of zero-tolerance policing that enables them to target impoverished and minority populations. The racism of these practices means that 1 in 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by the police in their lifetime, compared to 1 in 2,000 for all men and 1 in 33,000 for all women, according to the PNAS.

Photo by Pablo Lara on Unsplash

Meanwhile, wealth inequality is growing exponentially. The average household income of the top 1 percent rose 226 percent from 1979 to 2016, while the income for the majority of the population grew just 47 percent over the same period, according to The Council on Foreign Relations. The same study revealed that considering race makes the disparities even harsher, with the median wealth of white households tripling since 1960, while the wealth of Black households has barely increased. Reallocating spending toward social protection and infrastructure is associated with reduced income inequality in stable countries, particularly when it is financed through cuts in defense spending, such as the massive budget used for border control, according to an IMF study. However, if the US government only continues to channel funds into militarizing the border and its police force, there is little left for improving social services.

Our world’s environmental status will only increase migration and the “othering” of populations. Global climate change is exacerbating migration as people become climate refugees and flee areas plagued by flooding, agricultural insecurity, drought, extreme weather patterns, unpredictable crop markets, etc. Climate-related migration is worldwide, affecting the United States and Israel as settler states, and well as sending migrants out of Central America. Still, it creates an especially unjust dynamic in the United States, where they will likely continue to turn away migrants who are fleeing the impact of a crisis that the US is largely to blame for.

The concept of a settler state, and the mentality and actions that result from it, have always been and will continue to be dangerous and discriminatory. Hopefully, as movements such as Black Lives Matter grow in strength and support, this dynamic will shift.

Highland Support Project (HSP), based in Richmond, Virginia, seeks to support Indigenous communities and their right to be with their culture and community and on their land. On Sunday, September 27th, Ben Blevins, the director of HSP, will be engaging in a virtual discussion with Muna Hijazi about increasing global migration and militarization. Muna Hijazi is a progressive organizer who currently works for the Arizona Advocacy Network and is the CEO and founder of Moon Sun Mountains Consulting. Muna will bring her expertise from connecting Middle Eastern immigrants and indigenous American communities, as well as her personal experiences as a Palestinian-American.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect editorial policy.

Top Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Shining Light Against Oppression and Separation

Hadley Chittum | July 23, 2019

Topics: abbie arevalo herrera, ACLU, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigration policy, Lights For Liberty, Virginia Capitol

On July 12, Richmonders joined with protesters across the country, showing their opposition to detention camps and family separations at the US-Mexico border with the nationwide Lights For Liberty vigil.

Hundreds of supporters came out to the Lights for Liberty vigil in front of the state Capitol building in downtown Richmond on Friday, July 12th. The vigil brought people together across the US to protest the federal government’s immigration policies and treatment of migrants at the US-Mexico border. The Richmond vigil was one of over 700 planned that night for different locations across the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were rumored to be attending, preventing anyone not wanting to risk arrest from joining in. ACLU legal observers present at the event could not confirm if ICE officers did actually attend. 

The vigil included Richmond activists as speakers, and ended with a Facebook LiveStream account of staying in a detention center on the border by Abbie Arevalo Herrera, a woman who has been fighting her deportation for the past year by living within the First Unitarian Church of Richmond.

Here are some scenes from the evening’s events:

Photos by Hadley Chittum

Little By Little

RVA Staff | July 1, 2019

Topics: Father Jack Podsiadlo, Hispanic liaison, ICE, Juan Tejeda, Kenia Marte Santana, Latino Citizens Police Academy, Richmond police department, Sacred Heart Center

In the age of ICE, new Richmond police Hispanic liaison Kenia Marte Santana attempts to bridge the gap between the department and the city’s Hispanic community.

Kenia Marte Santana stands dressed in a dark, almost black police uniform, with a blue badge featuring lady justice on her left shoulder. She smiles while waiting patiently for those who are running late to the night’s event. It’s Thursday, November 29, 2018, and Santana is preparing to host the Richmond Police Department’s 24th Latino Police Academy graduation ceremony.

On her right, a man dressed in a light grey suit with a blue shirt talks with her. He is Officer Juan Tejeda, Hispanic liaison for Richmond Police Department from 2011 until last October, when Santana took his position. Even though he has hosted the Latino Citizens Academy for many years, his successor is already stealing some of his spotlight.

The room inside Ramsey Memorial United Methodist Church is big, with blue walls and many windows, obscured by pale yellow curtains. The place is lit with white, fluorescent lights. Eight long tables with white tablecloths and grey plastic chairs facing the front fill the place. At the end of the room, two tables covered with white and black tablecloths hold diplomas and medallions.

The academy is led by police officers. They teach citizens about their constitutional rights, dangers of drugs and tobacco, and what it’s like to work in law enforcement. This past November, seven adults graduated, along with four middle school girls, but Tejeda and Santana hope the effect can reach beyond the people in the room.

“My message to you,” Tejeda told the graduates, “is everything that you learned here, to take it to the community — bring it to the community. And more importantly, that you enforce it.”

Santana with graduates of the Latino Citizens Police Academy. Photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

Tejeda has built trust with this community. As the new Hispanic liaison, Santana wants to continue that work. She immigrated from the Dominican Republic herself in 2010, speaking no English at the time. She understands the importance of having police who can communicate effectively with the growing immigrant community in South Richmond. 

However, this may be an upward battle in the age of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more commonly known as ICE. The changes to immigration laws under the current administration have made it more difficult to seek asylum in the U.S. There are few protections for undocumented persons when they report crimes, and ICE has a presence in Richmond, even if local police deny working directly with them.

Father Jack Podsiadlo oversees the Sacred Heart Center, an organization that offers support and adult education for Richmond’s Latino community. He says his organization doesn’t work with police, “because we are wise.”

“It is more in the last couple of years, under the Trump administration, that we had to pull away,” he said.

Immigrant communities often don’t report to the police for fear of deportation, even if local law enforcement want to help. Many of the families who move to Richmond are undocumented, or have deep-seated distrust of police due to experiences in their home country. 

Tejeda worked as the Hispanic liaison for seven years and became a recognizable, trustworthy face for some in South Richmond’s Hispanic community. Santana, age 24, became a police officer two and a half years ago. Patrolman Jesus Deras, her occasional partner, described her as “perfect for the job,” because of her friendly and outgoing personality. However, in the current climate, immigrant fear of law enforcement goes beyond her position.

The Department and the Community

Richmond’s second police precinct covers the city’s most densely populated region for immigrants from Central America, South America, and Mexico. Hull Street cuts through the center of this area, which includes the Southwood Apartments, often referred to as “La Mancha” by locals because of its large Spanish-speaking population.

This is where Tejeda has focused his efforts since working as Richmond Police’s Hispanic liaison. Tejeda organized police department soccer games with community members, ran the Latino Citizens Police Academy, and started the Miss Hispanidad Virginia Pageant. He runs the Hispanic American School for Advancement (HASA) outside of his duties as a police officer. After feeling like he was falling behind, he decided to step down from the liaison position and make way for Santana.

“Between HASA and that position [Hispanic liaison], I had no personal life,” Tejeda said. “HASA takes 80 to 90 percent of my free time.”

Tejeda with McGruff the Crime Dog in 2017. Photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

Besides just Tejeda’s personal efforts, the department has held more Spanish courses for English speaking officers and has hired more native Spanish speakers. He estimates that ten or fewer officers could speak Spanish a decade ago, but they’ve since nearly doubled that number, though they could still use more.

Deras patrols the second precinct 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. most nights and said he is often the only Spanish-speaking officer on duty for the entire area.

“I have to go all the way to the other side [of the precinct] just to translate something basic,” he said. “And then sometimes we go to a situation that we don’t know what is happening beforehand.”

Even with the language barrier between most officers and Hispanic immigrants, Tejeda believes that he has the trust of the community, and that the relationship is better now than it was just a few years ago. More crimes are reported now, he said, showing a greater willingness to call police to help with problems.

Despite the challenges that still face the Richmond Police Department’s Hispanic liaison, Tejeda feels that Santana is well-suited for the job.

“It’s a big position,” Tejeda said. “It’s a lot of responsibility, but she is a good public speaking person. She has a heart for the community. Her biggest challenge is to have the community trust her the same way that they trust me.”

Challenges for Santana

Earlier last summer, Santana walked into a small apartment with one extra-wide king-size mattress. A family of five lived there together, and the three children, ages 4, 8, and 12, all slept in the same bed as their parents. Santana went to this apartment because she had received a call about domestic abuse and sexual assault from the mother there. Her oldest son told Santana that his father beat him for smoking cigarettes, and that his father was sexually abusing his mother in the bed while they all tried to sleep at night.

Santana was appalled, but there was little she could do for the woman, because she didn’t want to file an official police report. Santana ordered the husband to leave, and said he was “sick,” but he just laughed at her.

“I had to leave because I was way too upset,” she said. “You can’t get a restraining order if you don’t have a report.”

The father was back the next week when she followed up, but there was no way to arrest him without a victim willing to testify against him.

Nonetheless, domestic violence is one of the most difficult crimes for people to report, and happens in all communities, Richmond-based immigration lawyer Alina Kilpatrick said, but it disproportionately affects undocumented immigrants because they are not protected by the law.

“They don’t want someone taken away and never seen again,” said Kilpatrick. “No matter how badly they’re being mistreated, because that person might be the primary breadwinner for the entire family.”

A visa with greater protections for victims may take four or more years to acquire, Kilpatrick said, and would take hiring a lawyer, requiring time and expense that many in that community cannot afford. This issue is also affected by President Donald Trump’s recent policy change to remove domestic violence as a reason to seek asylum, which undermines any message from the police encouraging people to report these types of crimes.

Santana tries to meet as many people in the Hispanic community of South Richmond as she can. She has an iPhone from the department set aside for citizens to call her directly. She has a Facebook page where people frequently message her, and she can answer questions or give advice related to constitutional rights, crime reports, and where to find good English language classes. She says people can recognize her car, displayed on the banner of her Facebook page, which features a purple “Domestic Violence Prevention” ribbon decal on its hood. 

Santana believes, “little by little,” she can reach the entire Hispanic community in her precinct through the Latino Citizens Academy. 

“Because it’s big families,” she said, and went on to describe two sisters who just graduated that live in a house with seven other family members: children, husbands, and siblings. “So I think in a year or two, it could be possible.”

Officer Kenia Marte Santana. Photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

The community Santana describes is growing quickly, and she’s seen it. At a recent trip to Greene Elementary School to talk to children about police duties and the dangers of tobacco and alcohol, Santana noticed that out of the 74 students, over 50 were Hispanic. She wants to be a role model for those students, focusing mostly on the youth, because, she said, the trust has already been built with Hispanic adults who have lived in Richmond for some time.

She had good mentors herself when she moved to Richmond at age 16. She passed her English as a Second Language exam at Huguenot High School after only three months of learning the language, so she could take classes that would give her credit to graduate on time.

She became a police officer because she wanted to be a mentor and help her community, in the same way that people had pushed her in high school to stay on the right path. 

“I thought to myself, ‘Police officers here and social workers are like the same thing, when you think about it,’” she said.

Disconnect within the Community

The Sacred Heart Center is one of the major cultural and educational hubs for the Hispanic community. It provides the Hispanic community with diverse programs related with citizenship tests, literacy, kids programs and English language classes. According to Father Jack, this is the only center that focuses on the Latino community in Richmond.

“We are here to give a voice to the voiceless,” Father Jack said. “To teach them how to speak up for what are their rights and their needs, so they are not just in the shadows, but they are taking a seat in the table where decisions are made.”

Most members of the Hispanic community who he interacts with are undocumented, Father Jack said. That makes them particularly vulnerable, because everything they do is illegal. They can buy a car, but they can’t get a drivers license. Without legal status, they can’t get health insurance. They can’t work without being paid under the table. Many members of the community are being abused at their jobs, because they are afraid of filing a complaint. Hispanic immigrants often carry large amounts of cash with them, because they are afraid that if they put their money in a bank and they get caught, they would lose access to it. 

Father Jack Podsiadlo of Sacred Heart Center. Photo by Carlos Bernate

According to Father Jack, one of the greatest fears members of this community have is being deported. Being caught by ICE is the biggest nightmare for most undocumented people. At the Sacred Heart Center, they learn how to protect themselves.

“The first thing you always are taught is that you don’t give out any information,” Father Jack said. 

They teach people not to open the door when ICE agents knock unless there is a warrant from the judge. They also tell them not to provide ICE officers with information such as their full name or country of origin, “because they will know that if you are from Mexico, or South America, pretty much, you are undocumented,” Father Jack said.

He describes the relationship between the Sacred Heart Center and the police department as “minimal.” “We have to play that really carefully,” he said. “Because the general impression that people have is that the police department is working with ICE very closely.”

Santana said that Richmond police do not collaborate with ICE, but she admits ICE has access to national databases. When a person is arrested and fingerprinted, that data becomes accessible to the federal government.

“They are working closely with ICE, even when the government says that that is not happening” said Carlos Bernate, an interpreter for immigration lawyers in the city. “I know from the community that some people that were detained, were detained by the police, and then ICE took them.”

Santana explained that when they arrest someone, the sheriff’s dept is the one that contacts ICE, not the Richmond Police Department. “We don’t have direct contact with ICE,” she said.

However, tension between Richmond Police and the Latino community and its advocates has built over the last couple of years under the Trump administration. Because of “the spirit of this time,” Father Jack said, Sacred Heart decided it was better to “pull back.”

“There was a time when we used to collaborate with one of the precincts,” Father Jack said. “They were doing some good things in the community. They understood that they were to keep the neighborhood safe, not to be doing the job of the federal government.”

Now, though, Bernate doesn’t see the same level of understanding from the city’s police force.

“They come to an event and take a picture and that’s it,” he said. “I don’t think that is actually coming to the community, where there is a lot of crime, a lot of ICE raids.”

Sacred Heart Center (Photo by Carlos Bernate)

For Father Jack, the only way a relationship between the Hispanic community and the police department can exist is if the police make it clear that they will not purposefully collaborate with ICE. “And it has to come from the head — the police chief,” he said.

According to Santana, former Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham stated at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in 2018 that the department does not collaborate with ICE.

“Little by Little”

Back in the big room with blue walls and pale yellow curtains, Rachel de la Cruz has just received her diploma as one of the graduates of the citizens academy. At 13 years old, she has seen many of her family members deported or put in jail. She wants to go to Harvard and become an immigration lawyer, so she can help her community, especially those people who don’t know much English. Santana understands her desire.

“I wanted to be an immigration lawyer in high school,” Santana said. “You see people needing help and you just want to help.”

“I had a lot of experiences in the past with my friends doing bad things,” Rachel said. “My friends would get into drugs and alcohol, and I didn’t want to go that path.”

“I started smoking cigarettes when I was in high school,” Santana said. “Thank God I quit, because I was trying to fit in.”

Joining the academy helped Rachel to understand the police’s perspective. “I have always been scared of the police,” she said. “They’d take family members away, or scare me in general with their weapons.”

However, she felt like she could relate to officer Santana, because she is a Latina. “She is a very kind person and very giving person,” Rachel said. “She doesn’t think of herself as an officer that you have to be scared of. She is just another person, and she is just protecting you.”

Even Santana knows that area police have a long way to go where relationships with Richmond’s Hispanic community. Six months ago, she was driving through Chesterfield when she was stopped by two Chesterfield police officers. In order to prove a theory, she pretended not to speak any English, assuming the police stopped her because of the way she looked.

“Immediately [the officer] was just saying flat out, ‘I’m gonna give her a ticket — she probably doesn’t even have a license,’” Santana said. “Already assuming I didn’t have a license because I was Hispanic.”

“There’s still a wall, but the wall is slowly coming down,” Rachel said. “[The police] were so kind. Even when they were mad at us for being bad, they still cared, and really showed a lot of passion for us to be better people.”

Santana, Tejeda and other RPD officers pose with graduates of the Latino Citizens Academy (Photo by Silvia Serrano)

After all the graduates get their diplomas, Santana urges people to ask the photographer for photos with their families, offering to print them out and bring them copies.

Santana believes that it’s this kind of one on one interaction that is going to allow police to connect with the Hispanic community. She believes that she can play an important role in making it happen, one person at a time.

“Little by little,” she said.

—

Top Photo by Silvia Serrano. Written by Silvia Serrano and Conner Evans.

Silvia Serrano is a writer and journalism student at the University of Richmond from Madrid, Spain. She has a special interest in environmental issues, although she also enjoys writing about social and cultural topics.

Conner Evans is studying English and journalism at University of Richmond. He is also the music director at WDCE 90.1, and he’s a member of the improv team, STC.

Organizers Move To Protect Immigrants in the River City

Sarah Allen | June 28, 2018

Topics: abigail spanberger, Dave Brat, ICE, immigration, immigration ban, immigration laws in Virginia, Mark Warner, richmond, Tim Kaine

On Thursday, June 20, after facing extreme political pressure from both parties, President Trump signed an executive order to end his administration’s practice of separating children from their families as they cross the border. However, the administration has no clear plan to reunite the more than 2300 children who have already been taken from their families. In fact, many of the separations could be permanent.

The humanitarian crisis at the southwest border is drawing much-needed national attention and resources, and it has many Richmonders wondering how recent changes to immigration policy and enforcement are affecting our local communities.

Immigrants in Richmond Face Increased Pressure 

According to the American Immigration Council, more than one in eight Virginia residents is an immigrant. One in six Virginia workers is an immigrant, and immigrant-led households in the state paid $6.7 billion in federal taxes and $2.7 billion in state and local taxes in 2014.

“These are our neighbors, our friends, our children’s’ friends,” said Jennifer West, a local immigration attorney and partner at Roth Jackson. “It’s overly simplistic to tell people ‘just get in line, wait your turn, follow the rules.’ The people presenting themselves at the border for asylum are doing things the right way, and they’re being arrested and detained anyway. Others may be fleeing dangerous situations in their home countries and may not always have the luxury of waiting years for paperwork to go through. “

“The sentiment in our community is increased fear and uncertainty,” said Tanya Gonzalez, executive director at the Sacred Heart Center, a hub for Latino communities in Richmond that focuses on education, social integration, empowerment, and success. “Members of the Latino community in Richmond have had an increased number of incidents of discrimination and harassment, ranging from things like being told not to speak Spanish in a public place to bullying in schools.” A recent report from Virginia police show hate crimes are up nearly 50 percent year-over-year in the state, including ten anti-Hispanic crimes.

Reports of ICE Enforcement in Richmond Have Increased

While Richmond has not yet seen the kind of sweeping, large-scale, military-style immigration raids that have taken hundreds of parents away from children in communities in California, Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa, and elsewhere, local immigration rights’ advocates have seen changes in our area and worry about what the future holds.

“In the last year or so, we’re seeing increased enforcement, more red tape, and much longer delays in general,” said West. “Both businesses and families going through legal processes have to wait much longer and jump through more hoops. Those delays can be a big hardship on a family waiting to be reunited and on local entrepreneurs who can’t find Americans to do their jobs.”

“We’ve heard several reports of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents arresting immigrants at courthouses or nearby, including arresting people they didn’t have a warrant for,” said Phil Storey, an immigration attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center. “That’s a relatively new and troubling practice.”

“Things are changing for this community rapidly,” said Alina Kilpatrick, another immigration attorney in Richmond. “I have clients on appeal who have been going to regular and routine check ins with ICE or with DHS contractors every six to 12 months who are suddenly being told to pack their bags and leave behind children and spouses who are legal citizens. I’m also hearing about increased arrests and detentions at routine ICE appointments in addition to deportations.”

The majority of immigrants living in Virginia are legally allowed to be here. More than half the immigrants living in Virginia are naturalized, and many more are eligible for naturalization. Over 10,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients live in Virginia.

Fewer than one-third of all immigrants are undocumented, but it’s an issue that affects many families since nearly 100,000 children in Virginia who are legal U.S. citizens live with at least one undocumented parent. Therefore anytime parents are swept up in ICE enforcement raids, they’re often leaving behind at least one child who is a U.S. citizen.

Child of Abbie Arevalo-Herrera. Photo by Carlos Bernate

One human example of the often arbitrary line between documented and undocumented immigrants is a Richmond mother named Abbie Arevalo-Herrera, a woman from Honduras seeking asylum in the U.S after escaping domestic violence in her home country. Threatened this week with deportation and now taking sanctuary in Richmond’s First Unitarian Universalist Church (information made public by her legal team), if she goes back to Honduras, she will be leaving behind her husband and two-year old son, both legal U.S. citizens. Although she is fighting for herself and for domestic violence survivors everywhere, her future in Richmond is uncertain.

How to Help Your Neighbors in Richmond

There are a number of national organizations dedicated to helping immigrant families at the Southwest border, but for people who want to help here in Richmond, here are a few ways to help.

Support Local Organizations

Central Virginia has a number of organizations dedicated to working to support immigrants while promoting equity, civil rights, and empowered, integrated communities. The following is a partial list.

Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC):  The LAJC is a nonprofit organization with offices across Virginia, including Richmond, whose mission is to strengthen the voices of low-income communities and root out the inequities that keep people in poverty. In Richmond, they provide legal support, including individual representation, to communities facing legal crises, including immigrant communities. Statewide, LAJC is a leader in the creative use of litigation to demand the release of unaccompanied minors in detention and to push back on ICE practices such as so-called “collateral arrests.”

What they need:

  • Donations allow LAJC to take on more cases and represent more people, providing equal and accessible justice for all.
  • Pro-bono attorney volunteers
  • Volunteers to assist with clerical and administrative tasks.

Sacred Heart Center (SHC): SHC is a community hub for Richmond’s Latino community, and offers a variety of educational and human service programs to individuals and families, including educational opportunities for adults (including GED, ESL, computer, and leadership classes), programs for youth and children (including school readiness, school enrichment, summer camp, parenting classes and more), and strategic community partnerships (that help with food assistance, health care, support groups, tax preparation, and more).

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to their Family Protection Project, which seeks to prevent the separation of local families by offering low-cost or pro bono immigration services, assistance locating loved ones who have been lost or detained, and volunteer training.
  • Volunteers: opportunities range from cleaning to tutoring to photography to teaching ESL.    
  • Donations of gently used clothing, new stuffed animals and books, diapers and school supplies
  • Nonperishable food items for the Bainbridge Ministry Food Bank, open Monday through Friday, 9:15 am to 12 pm, Monday to Friday.

Central Virginia Sanctuary Network (CVSN): A project of the the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, the CVSN is made up of interfaith congregational and organizational members, as well as individuals who volunteer through the Circles of Protection. Member commitments range from commiting to host guests facing deportation to supporting that work through fundraising, accompaniment, and hospitality.

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to the Sanctuary Fund, which provides for people fighting detention or deportation while in Sanctuary, and also covers bail and legal defense.
  • Volunteers: CVSN is looking for congregations and individual drivers (to take undocumented people who are not eligible for driver’s’ licenses to appointments), writers and communications professionals, legal resources, outreach, hospitality (arranging meals, entertainment, visitation, and counseling), accompaniment to court hearings (which often protects people from detainment), and other tasks.
  • Fundraising: Buy a t-shirt, tote bag, poster, or tank top with original artwork saying by Richmond artist Alfonso Perez reading “all are welcome here.”

Virginia Coalition for Immigrants Rights (VACIR): VACIR is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic coalition of organizations that exists to win dignity, power and quality of life for all immigrant and refugee communities. VACIR gives grants to other organizations, often to small and under-resources local organizations who mobilize quickly to do rapid response in emergency situations. VACIR has supported naturalization clinics, “know your rights” seminars, and DACA assistance programs.  

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to fund member organizations initiatives.

Make Your Voice Heard Locally

Protests: There are a number of upcoming protests around Virginia aimed at fighting unjust immigration policies, advocating for reuniting the 2,300+ children who have already been taken, and ending the zero-tolerance policy that criminalizes and detains families.

Call your Senators and Representatives: Ask them to support common-sense immigration reform and insist on reuniting separated families. Check out Indivisible’s Guide on what to ask for when calling Republicans and Democrats.

  • Contact Mark Warner, Virginia State Senator:
  • Contact Tim Kaine, Virginia State Senator
  • Find your House of Representatives member

Be an ally to local immigrants. Here’s how.

Use your privilege. If you’re not sure what that means, start here.

Elect, donate to, and work for people who hold views on immigration that you support. Vote in every election that you can. Volunteer to canvass, phone bank, and drive people to the polls. Give money.

In Virginia, Tim Kaine is up for reelection against Corey Stewart, a neo-confederate candidate for U.S. Senate. In the 7th House District, which covers much of the Richmond area, newcomer Abigail Spanberger is challenging incumbent Dave Brat, a Republican who has a strong anti-immigrant platform.

What else are we missing? Leave your comments if you have other ideas to support and defend immigrants in RVA.

Photos by Carlos Bernate.

Protests Against Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” Immigration Policy Being Planned All Over Virginia

RVA Staff | June 20, 2018

Topics: activism, Dave Brat, ICE, immigration policy, Inhumanity, President Trump, protest, Scott Taylor, Zero Tolerance

As outrage continues to mount over President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies, protests are planned for all over Virginia. For those who have been living under a proverbial rock and have not been following the news, Trump’s newly implemented policy removes children from their parents when they are caught crossing the border illegally. Since the policy has been implemented, it has been reported by the executive that 2,342 children have been separated from their parents at the border between May 5 and June 9 – amounting to about 65 children a day.

Once taken from their parents, these children are put in detention centers in places like McAllen, Texas, where they have been photographed sleeping on the floor with mylar blankets and imprisoned in chain-link cages. Children as young as four-months-old have been reportedly separated from their parents and ProPublica has recently released audio from inside a detention center where one ICE agent can be heard saying “we have an orchestra here” in reference to all the screaming children. Sexual assaults against mothers of separated children have also now been reported by guards and staff at one of the detention centers in Texas in a recent complaint filed against Department of Homeland Security.

NBC reported on this yesterday saying, “Women at the 500-plus bed center, which opened in August, told attorneys that staff have been removing mothers from their cells at night to engage in sexual acts, promising immigration help in exchange for sexual favors, and groping women in front of children, according to the complaint.”

Due to the inhumanity of this policy and the way in which it is being implemented, there will be a series of protests taking place in the next week all throughout the Commonwealth. Dates, times, and locations can be found below:

Virginia Beach:

June 21 at Congressman Scott Taylor’s office in Virginia Beach Town Center, sponsored by Indivisible 757.

Richmond:

June 22 at Congressman Dave Brat’s Office, meeting at the CVS on 10901 W Broad St, Glen Allen, sponsored by Together We Will – Henrico.

Washington DC: 

June 30, in front of the White House, sponsored by the Women’s March, along with seven other activist organizations and networks.

Norfolk:

June 30, Disrupt Baby Snatching at the US Customs and Border Patrol Offices in Norfolk at 101 E. Main Street, hosted by Disrupt the Elite.

Farmville:

July 1, Weekend of Action at the ICE Detention Center, meeting up at the Farmville Train Station, 510 West Third Street, sponsored by a coalition of grassroots organizers.

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • ⟩

sidebar

sidebar-alt

Copyright © 2021 · RVA Magazine on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Close

    Event Details

    Please fill out the form below to suggest an event to us. We will get back to you with further information.


    OR Free Event

    CONTACT: [email protected]