We hope this information mobilizes some of our friends and family. As many of you may already know President Donald Trump has ordered nationwide immigration enforcement raids starting this weekend. For those of you who may be a target of immigration enforcement (ICE), please do not panic. We the citizens of the United States of America are here to protect our beloved community members. The most important thing we can do is make sure people know their rights and are prepared for the worst. We just spent our weekend learning from members of South Asian Americans Leading Together about resources that are currently available. We will be spreading this information all over social media using the hashtag #KnowYourRights. To start please give this red card to any one in your life who may be a target of ICE. We have these cards in 8 different languages to remind people their rights during interactions with ICE.
Sadly, there are already over 1200 Asian migrants in ICE detention centers in DC, Maryland, and Virginia alone. These are hard working people from every continent of the world. Some have lived here and contributed to our economy for decades. The detention centers are overcrowded and even have had an outbreak of Mumps recently.
It is important to know that ICE officers are not always in uniform during raids and use manipulative tactics to get away with illegal arrests. Meaning they show up with a warrant for 1 person’s arrest and leave arresting 11 people. It is horrible because ICE is acting like they are above the law. It is also crucial to know that nobody should ever lie or run away from ICE officers. That will make the situation much worse. Instead cooperate and apply your right to only speak upon counsel of an attorney.
On a side note as citizens it is our job to spread the information and resources people should use if they run into trouble with ICE. We have these resources in many languages and would love to share them with the community at scale. We will also be passing them out to local business owners in the DMV as well. If you know a second language such as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, etc or would just like to help please contact us. Our neighbors needs help.
Vikram Mangat
info@ilivemindful.com
240-888-4950