Arizona Democrats rail against ICE violence: ‘What the hell is wrong with us?’
Caitlin Sievers
(Arizona Mirror) Democratic legislators took to the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives on Monday to express outrage and sorrow, and to decry the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s violence and disregard for the U.S. Constitution following Saturday’s killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
For nearly an hour, 22 Democratic state representatives took turns demanding accountability for the agencies implementing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, who have shot and killed two protesters in Minnesota just this month and have violated countless peoples’ constitutional rights across the country over the past year.
The Arizona lawmakers added their voices to growing criticism of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and ICE aggression from people across the country, spurred by immigration agents shooting and killing Pretti and Renee Good, both caught on video. (An ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, killed Good. An unidentified Customs and Border Protection agent killed Pretti.)
The vast majority of Republicans, who control the chamber, snubbed their Democratic colleagues and walked off the House floor before or while they were speaking.
The Democrats detailed the fear, anxiety and sorrow that ICE’s tactics have already caused in Arizona communities, where about 40% of the population is Latino.
“People are afraid to go to school, to go to work, to go buy food for their families,” said Rep. Consuelo Hernandez, D-Tucson.
Hernandez said that one of her constituents, a Native American woman, was scared for her grandchildren who work in the Tucson area, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ICE could use racial profiling when determining who to question.
“She was crying, because she said she didn’t know if they would come home from work, or they would be picked up, thinking that they were here illegally,” Hernandez said.
Rep. Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, said that his kids are too worried that their friends will be picked up by ICE and suddenly disappear to focus on their schoolwork, and they see classmates crying because their parents have been deported.
“It’s hard for them to see what’s going on in this world today,” he said.
Rep. Lorena Austin was shaken when they saw the aftermath of ICE’s actions in their Mesa district.
“I have this haunting photo in my brain of a truck left in my district, in a Food City parking lot,” Austin said. “Doors wide open. It’s red, and it has fruit in the back of the truck. Someone was simply selling fruit to support their family.”
The lawmaker said they’ve heard of construction workers building homes in Mesa — helping to ease the housing shortage — being detained during their lunch break.
Austin expressed disappointment that they are still fighting discrimination against Latinos, the same thing their father protested for in the 1970s.
“Now, I stand here as an elected legislator, who’s a fifth generation Arizonan who has been told to go back to their country, like this country isn’t mine,” Austin said. “Like my great-great-great-grandparents didn’t fight and die for this country.”
The Democratic lawmakers castigated ICE and the Trump administration for violating due process rights of immigrants who lack legal status in the U.S.
“I know that you’re tired of hearing all of us, but we’re all united together, because we believe that people have a right to seek asylum,” Consuelo Hernandez said. “People have a right to go through the legal process, and they’re still being picked up, and that includes children. Shame on all of us who support that.”