Corrections Corporation of America officials placed Arizona’s Eloy Detention Center on lockdown following an uprising by immigration detainees over the New Year holiday.
Oakland, Calif., exploded into violent protests Jan. 7 over the police slaying of 22-year-old African American father of one Oscar Grant. Following a memorial service for Grant at Palma Ceia Baptist Church, it was announced that officer Johannes Mehserle had… Read moreRiots rock Oakland after police slay youth
In a victory for constitutional rights, two Transportation Security Authority (TSA) officials and JetBlue Airways have paid Raed Jarrar $240,000 to settle charges that they illegally discriminated against the US resident based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on… Read moreHomeland Secuity to pay in airport discrimination case
On Dec. 12, some 1,300 federal prisoners staged an uprising at the privately run Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, Texas, to demand better medical treatment after a detainee died at the facility, allegedly of natural causes. The Reeves County… Read moreTexas: immigration detainees protest death, seize hostages
On Dec. 10, ICE agents arrested 15 immigrants who were employed as contract janitorial workers at the BP oil refinery in the town of Whiting in northern Indiana. ICE said the arrests stemmed from “a two-year critical infrastructure worksite enforcement… Read moreICE raids Indiana oil refinery
On Dec. 4, ICE agents raided Idaho Truss & Component Co., a wood framing company in Nampa, Idaho, just west of Boise, arresting 16 of the 22 workers present. The workers, all Mexican men, were expected to be placed into… Read moreIdaho ICE raid protested
Lipan Apache Women Defense announced Dec. 23 delivery of a letter to President-elect Barack Obama urging him to halt construction of the border wall, stop the illegal seizures of border communities’ properties, and to uphold and respect the rights of… Read moreLipan Apache to Obama: stop border wall construction
Read the fine print. "Five Muslim immigrants from South Jersey were convicted today of plotting to kill American soldiers, a crime that prosecutors said demonstrated how Al Qaeda was using the Internet to recruit, train and incite supporters for attacks… Read moreConvictions in Fort Dix pseudo-terror case
A lone protester at El Paso’s Rio Bosque Wetlands Park temporarily halted construction of the US government’s border fence Dec. 17, before being arrested by the Texas Rangers. Judy Ackerman, a local Sierra Club activist and founding member of Friends… Read moreProtester halts border wall construction in El Paso
In Episode 14 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the national protest wave that brought down president Park Geun-Hye in South Korea last December, and asks why Americans can't similarly rise to the occassion and launch a mass militant movement to remove Donald Trump. Given this extreme emergency—the detention gulag now coming into place, with undocumented migrants the "test population" for domestic fascism—we should be mobilizing in our millions. Weinberg identifies two significant obstacles to unity: 1. The fundamental split in the left over the whole question of Russia and its electoral meddling; and 2. The phenomenon of party parasitism, with both the Democrats and sectarian-left factions seeking to exploit popular movements to advance their own power. He concludes by asking whether social media can empower us to sidestep the Dems and the alphabet-soup factions alike and work rapidly and efficiently to build a leaderless, broad-based, intransigent movement around the aim of removing Trump. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon. (Photo of protest at Foley Square, Manhattan, by Syria Solidarity NYC)
Shades of 1936—already. From AP, Dec. 7: CHICAGO — Workers who got three days’ notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won’t go home without assurances they’ll get severance and vacation pay…. Read moreChicago: workers occupy factory
In Episode 13 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs Trump's executive order ostensibly ending the policy of family separation on the southern border, and demonstrates how it actually lays the groundwork for indefinite detention of migrants on military bases. The Central American peasantry, expropriated of its lands by state terror, CAFTA and narco-violence, is forced to flee north—now into the arms of Trump's new gulag. Immigrants are the proverbial canaries in the American coal-mine. The Trump crew are testing their methods on them because they are vulnerable, and banking on the likelihood that non-immigrants will say "not my problem." But if they get away with what they are doing now to a vulnerable and isolated population of non-citizens, it sets a precedent—and ultimately nobody is safe. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
