Cold as ICE
BY ED FELIEN
Editor/Publisher of Southside Pride
What was ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
doing in South Minneapolis?
Why was a federal agency leading a bust that
began as an investigation by the St. Paul police and was taking
place in the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) jurisdiction?
A trust has been broken, and it will take a
long time before it is mended.
The Mayor and the Minneapolis City Council pledged to not allow
the MPD to assist ICE in immigration enforcement operations. They
understood that if they assisted in immigration busts then the Latino
community would no longer trust the MPD. What happened on the afternoon
of May 19 at Lake and Bloomington was worse than the MPD assisting
in an immigration bust; it was the MPD abdicating its responsibility
for enforcing laws in Minneapolis, surrendering its jurisdiction
to federal authorities and acting like flunkies for the Bush anti-immigrant
campaign of terror.
If you are Latino, should you now expect to
be pulled over by ICE if you’re speeding or if you have a
taillight out? If you are Latino, should you now assume that all
your activities are being reported to ICE, and they will decide
when to bring the hammer down?
This is a very serious problem. The Mayor and
the City Council have surrendered their authority to govern the
City of Minneapolis and enforce our laws. They have given us over
to U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose and George Bush.
Prostitution is a blight in South Minneapolis.
You could argue it is less of a blight than ruinous interest rates
that drive people out of their homes or higher prices in inner-city
supermarkets, but, because bankers and the owners of supermarket
chains write the laws and prostitutes do not, the selling of sexual
favors is considered a crime and the exploitation of the poor is
not.
Further, one could argue, it is the criminalization
of prostitution that creates blight and cultural deterioration.
If prostitution were legalized and regulated and allowed to exist
in adult zones of a city or suburb (as it is Nevada and Holland)
then it wouldn’t have a negative social impact. The same argument
is valid for drugs. Legalize drugs and you eliminate the social
problems associated with drug dealing.
The Mayor and the City Council must act to take
back our local government. They should fire the police chief for
allowing the MPD to surrender its authority to the federal government,
and they should direct the city attorney to gain an injunction in
Federal Court to prohibit Rachel Paulose from using federal police
to conduct any more federal raids in Minneapolis. It is the job
of our MPD to enforce our laws. It is the responsibility of our
courts to judge whether someone is guilty of violating our laws.
Only after they have been apprehended by our police, tried in our
courts and, if found guilty, served time in our penal institutions,
only after all that is it proper for ICE to step in and begin deportation
proceedings.
It is very important that our local government officials stand up
to the federal government. If they continue to surrender, the result
will be chaos.
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