Seeds Will Grow

The following letter is an open-letter I sent to my representatives in Congress about the current immigration crisis in the USA. In the following letter, I echo the calls of Minnesotans and list 20 immigration decisions the Trump Administration has taken that have shaped our current crisis. You can write your own letter HERE.

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Dear Senators/Representative,

I am your constituent, and I stand with Minnesotans in their call for legal accountability of the ICE agents who killed two people in the streets of Minneapolis.

I call on you to do your job and regulate ICE. Arbitrary arrest quotas, billions in funding, and rapid expansion of ICE personnel without appropriate training is leading to civil rights abuses on a massive scale.

Please take this seriously.

1. Get ICE out of Minnesota
2. Make ICE officers face legal accountability for killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti
3. Prevent any additional funding for ICE. They are out of control already. Regulate this organization or end it entirely
4. ICE officers should only do targeted enforcement of convicted criminals with orders of deportation and JUDICIAL WARRANTS. End harassment, vehicular stops, race or accent profiling, document checks of passersby and going to businesses, schools, churches, employers, and homes without judicial warrants

Additionally, I wish to draw your attention to 20 immigration actions this administration has taken that I oppose (a non-exhaustive list). Rather than focusing, as promised to American voters, on removing criminal illegal aliens, this administration has CREATED illegal aliens by removing legal status from our beloved neighbors. Their actions are transforming the global immigration environment in frightening ways and driving us deeper into tribal division, neither moving us toward a more just world nor toward a safer or greater America.

The following actions shape the context in which ICE violence is eventually perpetrated. I oppose the following actions by this Presidential administration:

1. Arbitrarily removing legal status from MILLIONS of our neighbors who were here legally, as TPS holders or asylum seekers; then targeting them for deportation
2. Terminating immigration court cases en masse of neighbors who were legally present and doing everything right by showing up to court and immigration check-ins; then targeting them for deportation
3. Deporting our beloved neighbors to unsafe places, including nations where they know no one, do not speak the language, have no employment opportunities, and are made vulnerable to crime and violence (including to third countries whose governments were coerced by visa ban threats or tariff threats to accept them)
4. Separating families of US citizens from non-criminal immigrant family members
5. Targeting refugees who are legally present in the United States for arrest (Operation PARRIS), a deep and traumatic betrayal of American promises to families that we invited here to escape oppression and violence in their countries of origin
6. Targeting legally present neighbors for immigration arrest and detention, not because of crimes committed, but because this administration disagrees with their political opinion
7. Complete bans of immigrant and non-immigrant visa applications from 39 nations and Palestinian territories, keeping black and brown families apart
8. Charging exorbitant visa fees and financial bonds to visa applicants from many African and Asian nations, effectively bans on anyone but the richest, most powerful, or well connected – actions likely to be reciprocated toward Americans by other countries
9. Offering green cards (permanent US residency) to anyone who will pay the right amount (called the Trump Gold Card) – a pay-to-play program for the rich
10. Reducing refugee admissions to record low levels (7,500 per year) during a global refugee crisis, showing callous disregard and cruelty, even toward those who have been harmed because of our imperial intervention in their countries – and issuing instructions to prioritize white South Africans for refugee resettlement
11. Coercing state and local police to partner with enforcement of federal immigration law, which is illegal in some states because it creates fear for vulnerable immigrants to call police when crimes are committed against them
12. Creating a subclass immigrant population without access to law enforcement and equal protection under the law in states that comply with federal immigration enforcement
13. Expanding immigration detention to historic levels (73,000 people), commissioning new detention centers across the country (to detain at least 80,000 more), and moving billions of dollars of taxpayer money through these systems into the pockets of corporations that financially back the administration
14. Allowing for slave-like labor conditions in detention facilities, profiting corporations
15. Trolling citizens and immigrants alike with bullying, dishonest, and white supremacist rhetoric, promoting a toxic environment for our children who watch, imitate, and absorb the harm from this messaging
16. Setting an arrest quota (3,000 per day) for ICE agents and incentivizing them to achieve this goal with financial bonuses
17. Making a rapid hiring push open to errors in background checks, drug testing, and training
18. Sending Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino all around the country with film crews (using taxpayer money) to create recruitment materials for ICE; treating law enforcement like a reality TV show
19. Recruiting ICE agents with violent, christian nationalist messaging – distorting and misrepresenting the words of Jesus
20. Designating people “domestic terrorists” when they lawfully practice their 1st amendment rights to free speech, assembly, and to petition their government in opposition to this administration’s immigration policies and enforcement abuses

Despite cloaking their actions as “legal,” the above 20 actions violate our nation’s past promises and the spirit of the law, impeding rights and protections afforded us by US, international, natural, and divine law.

1. ICE out of Minnesota.
2. Killer ICE agents must face legal consequences.
3. Defund, regulate, abolish, and/or impeach ICE leadership.
4. Hold Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, Greg Bovino, and their agencies legally accountable for violating the 4th amendment’s protecting people from unreasonable search and seizure.

Do your job on behalf of the people of this country, and remember Jesus’ words, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”

Sincerely,
Jennifer Telfer

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You can write your own letter to your representatives here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/stop-ice-aggression

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