Voces de la Frontera demands Biden act to protect immigrants

Voces de la Frontera Action, the Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group, is denouncing a decision by a federal judge in Texas suspending a Biden administration policy that prioritized the arrest of undocumented immigrants who present public safety threats. The ruling opens  the door for all 11 million undocumented immigrants nationwide to become vulnerable to deportation, regardless of whether they’ve lived in the country peacefully and productively.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera Action, called the move “shameful,” and described it as  “part of a broader right-wing strategy to suppress the will of the people by controlling all three arms of government — the executive, legislative and judicial branches, through voter suppression tactics and appointing and electing right-wing judges.”

On Monday, at least 46 migrants were found dead in an abandoned tractor trailer in San Antonio, Texas. Reports indicate that 16 survivors were taken to the hospital, including four children, and were treated for heat stroke. A city worker heard a cry for help from inside the truck, then found a body outside the trailer. The discovery comes as the entire region endures an unrelenting heatwave.

San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said, “the patients that we saw were hot to the touch. They were suffering from heat stroke, heat exhaustion. No signs of water in the vehicle, it was a refrigerated tractor trailer. But there was no visible working A.C. unit on that rig.”

Neumann-Ortiz stressed that the Biden Administration has said it will appeal the decision by the Texas judge. “Immigrants need to know their rights to protect themselves from deportation in the immigration system,” she declared, warning that that the immigrant community “must use the full force of our voting power in the upcoming midterm elections to elect progressive champions in the primaries and defeat Republican right-wing candidates within a modern day white supremacist political party.”

“We must continue to hold Democrats accountable,” she added. “For too long Democrats have acted as ‘the lesser of two evils’ and failed to act boldly when they controlled the government, such as passing the Dream Act under the Obama Administration.”

On July 25, Voces de la Frontera will be co-sponsoring a national day of action in Washington D.C. with Never Again is Now. Marchers will call on the Biden Administration to use executive action to fulfill campaign promises to abolish the section 287g, the Delegation of Immigration Authority section of the Immigration and Nationality Act,  which allows federal immigration agents to deputize local law enforcement officers to “identify and remove noncitizens” from local communities “This national mobilization is more needed than ever,” said Neumann-Ortiz, “to force the hand of the administration to grant more protections and push back against far-right extremism.”