Volunteers follow Ice in Los Angeles
On the morning of the cold September in Los Angeles, Elijah Chilland, Victor Maldonado and four other volunteers from the Peace Patrol in the port area in Wilmengton Waterfurt Park, are directly outside the city’s port. Maldonado said: “If you told me at the beginning of the summer that after three months have passed, we will wake up in an inappropriate hours to fight fascism, I would not have believed you,” Maldonado said.
In 6 I amThey accumulated in two cars and drove over the Vincent Thomas Bridge to Terminal Island, which is a large area of reclaimed lands in the center of the port, passing through the vast shipping containers and small, dilapidated buildings that left it during the days of canning the port. From there, they headed to Cisid Street, a narrow road that leads to a memorial for Fourosato – the American -American hunting village that was destroyed during the Japanese detention period – near the southern end of the island. About a hundred yard of the memorial, there is a manufactured checkpoint indicating the entrance to a small peninsula from federal territory that includes a base for the American Coast Guard and imprisonment. Seaside Avenue is the only access point. The unique location of this complex makes it ideal for federal customers looking for a protected starting area away from view, while anyone also allows to monitor the movements of these customers while entering and leaving the facility.
In June, Celland, a teacher at a general school in Los Angeles, heard rumors that the National Guard forces had been mobilized on Terminal Island Island in preparation for the arrest of anti -terrorist policies.Ice The demonstrators across the city. This inspired Celland and his wife, Maya Suzuki Daniels, to participate in the establishment of the peace patrol in the Harbor region, a group of community activists who follow the movements of immigration authorities around Los Angeles. “I came here to verify this, because we wanted to tell people about this,” Chilland told me. None of the National Guard members were found on that day, but “what I saw is a convoy of eleven vehicles” – some of which carry the border guards mark, while others do not carry any signs, and they have shaded windows – leaving the federal complex and heading to the city. The next morning, another newly created peace journal was to verify whether the border patrol convoys had returned. She was. He said: “We have seen them every day since then.” It was the ninety -first day.
By six thirty, peace patrols were standing along the side of Cisid Street. Maldonado, a representative of the workers’ compensation session in the Los Angeles region, distributed a reflective green jacket (so that they cannot say they did not see us, “and the group began to work. Four members of the patrol took out their mobile phones to photograph each passing vehicle, while Celland managed the Instagram account of the peace patrol – a vital tool for broadcasting information and communicating with the public. Maldonado was carrying clicking tools in each hand (one for internal traffic to the Federal Complex, and one for external movement) and counted the vehicle flow. He told me: “We will get between one hundred and a hundred and thirty cars per day.” The SUV and a sedan passed. Click. Click. “If we get a flow of cars, this allows me to know that there is a lot of activity in Los Angeles.” It was the most crowded day since the patrol began in August, when three hundred and five vehicles passed. He laughed, saying: “We will tell our grandchildren that we defeated fascism with six dollars.”
Through the photos taken on the island of Terminal, the Peace Patrol and Union del Pario, a community activist organization, is comparing the vehicles with those that appear in the raids of immigration throughout the region. Some of the vehicles recorded by the group were monitored in Terminal Island in remote places such as Ventura and even SACRAMENTO. Once you make sure that the license plate belongs to a federal agent by appearing in Terminal Island and in a raid to enforce immigration laws, Paace Patrol will publish a picture of the board and vehicle on the group’s Instagram account. Maldonado said: “In a few cases, we saw one license board on two different vehicles,” Maldonado said. At other times, a temporary paper license plate was used to hide known panels.
“Exposure is not such a thing Ice “Li Tim McCosker, a member of the Los Angeles City Council, whose area covers the terminal is in a phone call. McCosker was a valuable resource for the patrols, and his wife volunteered with the group.” When she engages in a systematic and unconstitutional activity as she tries to seize the largest possible number of people in your network, you do not want cameras. ”It seems that customers who flow through Terminal Island agree. On that, according to the journal of peace, there are dozens of vehicles and confirmed paintings. “Coexist” bumper (Captain Coexist) or bears on the dashboard. For the group, her trumpet was loudly at the patrols while the driver was overwhelmed by his middle finger.
A month ago, this intimidation had reached its climax. On the morning of August 8, two men left the federal compound, left their car and targeted one of the patrols, Amanda Tribach, who was depicting cars and carrying a protest banner. It is installed on the ground, restricted its hands, and dumped in a truck. After that, as Tribach recounts, the customers took it to the complex, where it was detained for several hours. Later, it was moved to a second car by masked men and armed men (including one of the men who arrested it), where a private agent from the Ministry of Internal Security interrogated it. From there, Tribach was transferred to a federal detention center in the center of Los Angeles, where it was reserved until the next day.
When she was contacted to comment, Tricia McLeulin, helping the Minister of Internal Security for Public Affairs, claimed that Tribation jumped in front of the border patrol car leaving the federal complex, causing the driver to deviate, then “the car struck with its signs and fist as it was shouting with obscene words on the customers.” McLeulin also claimed that Tribach prevented customs customers and border protection from carrying out their duties, which led to her arrest. (Tribach was not accused of a crime.)
“None of this happened,” Tribach told me when I called him on the phone. The Ministry of National Security is “very frustrated and angry because we are photographing them there, but we stand on public property.” She also said that her mobile phone was confiscated during the detention, and is still in the possession of the Ministry of Internal Security. As a result, Tribach, the intensive care unit nurse, is concerned about the additional personal information that customers may have reached and can use to continue targeting it. “I feel fear every night when I go home to take me away,” she said.
For Suzuki Daniels, co -founder of the peace patrol, Video of the arrest of Tribach It is still difficult to see. “I have a physical reaction to that,” she said. “The only reason for not raising this matter of national criticism is that, at the present time, we are drowning in many crimes in our societies and all over the United States. I think we are somewhat amazed, and in a state of freezing shock.”
Almost two hours after the removal of Tribach, a group of masked clients returned to its open car, and searched its belongings, “and” they detained three of our patrols under the threat of weapons, “as Maldonado, who was present in that morning, remembers. In the video of the confrontation published by the Peace Police, a ship of the port police appears twice. Maldonado still does not understand the reason for not stopping and interfering: “Federal customers did not define themselves at all. They are masked. And you do not know whether they were from the guards or not. And you do not know who they are. The port police have just passed and pretended that they had never seen it.”
I have contacted Thomas Ghazi, head of the Los Angeles Port Police, about the incident, and about his administration’s role in supporting peace patrol rights in gathering on a public road. Ghazi confirmed that a person from his administration was present on the morning of the arrest of Tebagel, but he made it clear that he was a civilian officer in the port, not a police officer. However, was the security officer, at least, had to stop to witness the incident with the militants, and contact the department? Ghazi replied: “I have informed the supervisors, which was informed of our division.” “Under the time our police officers arrived, everyone had gone.”
The accident highlights the emptiness of Trump’s anti -speech by local politicians in Los Angeles. The mayor of the city, Karen Bass, has repeatedly denounced the incursion of the federal government in the city (describing it as a “non -American” assault “), saying IceThe continuous raids on immigrants constitute a “terrorist era” that must end. In July, it issued an executive directive that supports the 2017 city law that prohibits the use of city resources, including the Los Angeles Police, in immigration law enforcement activities, “unless this is required under Federalism or State Law.” However, in many videos presented to me by Union Del Barrio, the Los Angeles Police is present in immigration law enforcement activities, and it does not hinder federal customers, but it appears to be a secondary role.
In a video on June 24, immigration agents were seen holding individuals on the street, while Los Angeles police officers stand in front of them, and their hands are installed on their rifles or carrying holes, while they were pushing a crowd formed to intervene. In another video on August 13, a Los Angeles police officer stands a few meters away from an active operation for internal security investigations while asking a person outside the camera, “Why is the Los Angeles police working with internal security.” The officer responds that the Los Angeles police “provides security” for the agency, and that the administration has worked with HSI on “several occasions.”
This difference has become between what politicians are preparing and what is really clear recently for anyone who is biased towards the Democratic Party. For Suzuki Daniels, the failure of the Democrats to stand against the growing right -wing tyranny makes it feel weary towards the entire political system. She said, “No politician will save us.” After years of searching for political candidates, signing the petitions, and making phone calls for the election campaigns, she said: “All I do during the next four years will be a direct work and mutual assistance.” “I do not appeal to politicians to save me or save the people I care about. There are masked men wandering in my city trying to kidnap people.”
This spirit belongs to another era of resistance in the port of Los Angeles. Return to the island of the station, shortly after seven o’clock I amJenna, another member of the group, who refused to mention her last name, asked whether she could see the statue in the Memorial of the Japanese Fishing Village. She told me that her grandfather was a sliced immigrant who was hunting in the Gulf of San Pedro, and that he learned how to hunt tuna using long strands – a technique presented by Japanese immigrants, many of whom lived on the island of Terminal Island. Gina said that during the Second World War, when the US government destroyed Furosato on the ground, “there was a lot of protection” from non -Japanese society. “There were a lot of violent reactions, because what [the government] This was a dirty thing. She suffocated as she continued: “This is the white superiority, again, trying to take a foothold – it’s full fascism. Just as Japanese Americans happened.” Two statues of Japanese hunters turned, one looks at Los Angeles, and the other stare at the Federal Council, “watching them come and go”, as if they were part of their peace patrols. ♦