UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) leaders comment on the immigration events in LA
The U.S. government’s immigration operations raids across Southern California, and the unprecedented use of military forces to support those actions, raises serious legal and public questions. The faculty of UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) released the following statements:
Hiroshi Motomura, CILP Faculty Co-Director:
“The president has used relentless and cruel attacks on immigrants to fuel his misguided message that immigration is all about invasion, and that any attempt to have a meaningful debate about immigration amounts to insurrection. The president’s invasion message tries to justify overreaction –by deporting people to foreign prisons without seeing if the law allows them to stay, by sidelining judges who try to apply the law, and by mobilizing troops in the streets of cities that the president is intent on targeting. Shutting off dialogue about the future of our communities by claiming ‘invasion’ is hurting citizens and noncitizens alike. It is also a fundamental threat to our democracy.”
Ahilan Arulanantham, CILP Faculty Co-Director:
“We have heard numerous accounts of immigration enforcement officers detaining and forcibly interrogating people without any individualized suspicion—detaining everyone at certain worksites or in neighborhood sweeps. These tactics are illegal. The Fourth Amendment applies to immigration enforcement authorities just as it does to other law enforcement officers in this country. The federal courts have been crystal-clear that no one can be detained or forcibly interrogated unless there is a reason to believe they have violated the immigration laws. It is imperative that everyone—from political officials to legal scholars to community members throughout Southern California and beyond—not lose sight of the basic constitutional norm that immigration officers are disregarding every day on the streets of our city.”
Talia Inlender, CILP Deputy Director:
“The federal government’s sweeping raids have spread fear throughout Southern California’s immigrant communities. We have felt that fear in the lives of our students. As they study for exams, celebrate graduations, and go about their daily lives, students are struggling with the uncertainty wrought by a dramatic shift in immigration enforcement tactics indiscriminately targeting community members in Los Angeles and throughout the interior of the United States. These raids threaten our students and their families, putting at risk the dreams of immigrant youth who have long fueled this country’s progress toward a brighter future.”
KJ