Action Alert: Mothers and Other Caregivers Say STOP ICE, Restore Benefits for Immigrants!
Mothers and Other Caregivers Say: ● Stop ICE Murder, Kidnapping and Child Abuse ● STOP Funding ICE ● Restore Child Tax Credits, SNAP and Medicaid Benefits for Immigrants
As mothers and other caregivers, we are furious and deeply upset at the reign of terror being imposed on immigrants, our families and those standing with us. We are outraged at ICE’s cruel and brutal separations of children from their mothers and fathers. We have seen this tactic of breaking up families used in Black, Native American and other poor communities by the child “welfare” system which tears families apart. African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and other communities of color are being criminalized and our children traumatized.
Mothers have been thrown to the ground, beaten, pulled out of cars, the doors of our homes broken down, handcuffed and arrested in front of our children. Our children are being detained and used as bait to capture parents, or left abandoned when parents are snatched up. We are put in inhumane detention centers/prison camps sometimes with our children, and forcibly deported or completely disappeared. Even naturalized citizens are under threat and some have been deported.
Since the beginning of ICE’s terror campaigns last year, at least 40 immigrants have been killed by ICE – at least six in January alone died in detention centers. US residents including citizens who object and bear witness to the cruel and illegal treatment used against us are also being targeted. Renée Good, a mother of three, was murdered by an ICE agent just for legally observing him. She had her children’s toys in her car. How will her children live without their mother? Nurse Alex Pretti was riddled with bullets while asking a woman who had been pepper sprayed if she was ok. Their humanity and commitment give us hope. But we cannot allow immigrants and non-immigrants to be killed or injured for trying to defend their families and communities.
We worry about our children and their future. They should be having a regular childhood, going safely to school, playing ball, running in parks, instead of witnessing the brutality of this government toward their mothers and families or themselves be detained. It is sadistic to take a child from their mother’s arms.
Mothers do most of the work of feeding and protecting families, unwaged work that is vital to the survival and wellbeing of the whole community. Those of us who are immigrant and/or people of color are also the majority of low-waged domestic and homecare workers. But instead of recognition, we and our children are being dehumanized by policies that deny us access to any safety net. Work requirements are forced upon us threatening the benefits of millions, and new citizen-only restrictions bar even documented immigrant families from getting Child Tax Credits, Medicaid or SNAP benefits.
This brutality that we are living brings more poverty, homelessness, ill-health, insecurity and stress to impacted families everywhere, including domestic workers, the jornaleros and others who work the land. At the same time, rent, food prices and costs for medical care are rising. We’re in a moment of crisis for our survival.
We are outraged that the government wants to add billions more dollars to ICE’s already huge $170 billion budget ($42.5 billion a year), while immigrant as well as other communities are allowed to starve. We are outraged that this administration has increased the military budget to over $1 trillion a year, which is then used to attack some of the Global South countries we come from, like Haiti and Venezuela, and to fund the genocide in Palestine which has especially targeted women and children. ICE itself is deeply tied to Israel – many of their agents are trained by the Israeli military and they use Israeli spy technology (like Elbit and Palantir).
As immigrants we assert our right to be here. Our work in the countries we come from helped create the wealth that was extracted by the US and global multinational corporations. As mothers and other caregivers, citizens and non-citizens, we deserve a Guaranteed Care Income for our caregiving work – not money for murder, kidnapping, disappearance, detention and deportation.
We will not allow the brutality we are facing to divide us. All mothers and children and our communities must be protected and supported.
In the US, call your Representative and Senators and tell them: Stop funding ICE! Vote NO on upcoming bills funding the Department of Homeland Security! Congressional Switchboard number: (202) 224-3121.
Action Alert issued by: Global Women’s Strike; Care Income Now!; Women of Color/GWS; Nuevo Sol Domestic Workers and Day Laborers; Every Mother is a Working Mother, Payday men’s network. Endorsers so far: Community Collaboration LA; Give Us Back Our Children; Haiti Action Committee; Sister Judy Vaughn, founder of Alexandria House; Movement for Family Power; Peace, Justice, Sustainability NOW!; Purple House Project PA Inc.; Social Workers Ending Poverty Together (SWEPT); Welfare Warriors; Women’s League for Peace and Freedom Greater Philadelphia Branch