Urgent: Va immigration activist detained by ICE in Arizona

Alejandra Pablos is an immigration rights activist who lives in Virginia and partipated in a January 2018 protest outside the Department of Homeland Security. In a brazen act of openly stated retaliation, ICE detained her at an immigration "check-in" in Arizona. ICE openly told her she was being singled out for daring to organize. It is believed that someone from ICE in VA called her "deportation officer" in Arizona to set up her detention.

This kind of behavior is exactly the sort of overt fascism Donald Trump promised the alt-right when running for office. This is a brazen assault on the supposedly guaranteed rights of people (citizens or otherwise) under the First Amendment to protest and speak out, to "petition for redress of grievances."

Speaking of petitions, supporters have set up a petition to be delivered to her bond hearing, assuming she can even get a bond hearing. She has been told no bond hearing is possible until she sees an immigration judge "at an indeterminate time." She believes her life would be in danger in Mexico.

This sort of assault on free speech began with Trump urging supporters to assault protesters at his rallies. It continued with attempts to railroad Code Pink into prison for laughing at Jeff Session and the felony charges against the Greenpeace crane sitters. It has been ongoing with the continuing J20 prosecutions that could still leave 59 people in prison for the rest of their lives. ICE has picked up on this in a major way, routinely harassing and seeking to deport migrants who dare to speak up. Alejandra Pablos's case is not the first use of ICE's prisons and pigs in this way, and it won't be the last unless the community raises the price to be paid for harassing organizers until ICE taps out.

As for ICE themselves, they are perhaps the ultimate hypocrites. The mission of ICE has long been to "Make America White Again." The only thing is, Turtle Island was not originally white at all.

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