Feb 18, 2007 6:03 pm US/Pacific
Minutemen Rally For Bay Area Immigration Raids
by Thuy Vu
REDWOOD CITY (CBS 5) ―
-
-
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
The neighborhood around Hoover Elementary School in Redwood City is where many Latinos live.
It's also where agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, conducted raids two weeks ago.
"According to ICE, they were going after people with outstanding warrants, but they also took innocent people along the way," said Sheryl Bergman of the International Institute of San Francisco.
On Saturday, the Minutemen gathered in the neighbrohood to hold a rally supporting the ICE raids. The civilian border patrol group opposes illegal immigration.
"We support the arresting of people who not only break our laws to get here, but commit felonies while they're here," explained Charles Birkman of the Golden Gate Minutemen.
The Minutemen have held other rallies in the Bay Area. On Saturday, they also asked for a presidential pardon of two Border Patrol agents who were convicted after they shot a suspected drug smuggler and tried to cover it up.
Immigrant rights advocates charged the Minutemen with trying to tear apart Redwood City's sense of community.
"For outsiders to come in and try to destroy that and disseminate hate and mistrust is not appropriate," Bergman said.
Immigrant rights groups have asked the Redwood City Council to pass a resolution condemning the raids.
"That would be a huge step forward," Bergman said. "Parents would feel more secure when they walk their children to school or go to the store to buy milk."
But Birkman of the Minutemen dismissed the resolution, saying "They would be a sanctuary city and that would be in violation of our federal laws."
Redwood City mayor Barbara Pierce said she's not sure a resolution would do any good.
"I think there might be more effective ways to go through the state and federal officials, since they'll be the folks working to craft that legislation," Pierce said.
Last week, Richmond's City Council publicly denounced the raids after more than 100 people were arrested in Richmond and Concord. San Francisco will hold a hearing on a similar resolution later this month.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments