MacArthur Park's ICE Incursion and the Toll On Us All - Letters to the Housed
Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA
Update: On Friday, July 11, a federal judge ordered ICE to stop these warrantless sweeps. Read more at Associated Read more at Associated Press
As of 12 PM on Sunday, July 13, ICE actions were still being reported in Los Angeles County in violation of the court order.
Bill Essayli, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, disputed the judge's ruling on Twitter/X "We strongly disagree with the allegations in the lawsuit and maintain that our agents have never detained individuals without proper legal justification. Our federal agents will continue to enforce the law and abide by the U.S. Constitution."
This is a developing story and I'll follow up in next week's post. Stay safe!
Last Monday morning, July 7, approximately 90 National Guard troops and dozens of federal agents descended on MacArthur Park in Los Angeles's Westlake district. The operation included 17 Humvees, four tactical vehicles, two ambulances, and Border Patrol agents on horseback (Associated Press). After about an hour of what officials later called a "security perimeter" operation, they left without making a single arrest.
I've spent a fair share of my career in homelessness (emergency) services working in and around MacArthur Park. The Westlake district is home to a substantial unhoused community who need care: showers, food, medical attention, and housing. What they absolutely don't need is troops on horseback moving in "skirmish lines" across empty soccer fields (ABC News).
Those of us who work in the margins don't consider someone's immigration status as pertinent to their humanity, and it is human beings who we serve. Whether we do this work as members of faith communities, neighborhood groups, or professional service providers, we pay attention to the needs of the people we serve and we bring whatever resources we can to decrease their suffering. Where I grew up, that was the norm, not the exception.
A Campaign of Fear
Children attending a summer day camp in the park were rushed indoors as federal personnel arrived (Associated Press), (Newsweek). Mayor Karen Bass, who stopped her car on the way to City Hall to witness the operation, later spoke with an 8-year-old boy who told her he was "fearful of ICE" (Newsweek).
Defense officials stated the troops were deployed to protect immigration enforcement officers in case a hostile crowd gathered (ABC News).
Council member Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes MacArthur Park, said the park "was chosen as this administration's latest target precisely because of who lives there and what it represents: Resilience, diversity and the American dream" (AP News) The Westlake neighborhood has been called the "Ellis Island of the West Coast" for its large immigrant population (AP News)
Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson described the operation as "staging for a TikTok video" (KTLA News) while Mayor Bass stated bluntly: "I don't think the goal is to detain. I think the goal is to spread fear" (ABC News).
For Those Who Serve: Understanding Your Rights and Obligations
I recently read an article about the emotional toll these actions are taking on ICE and other immigration forces (The Atlantic) As I talked about last week, the people behind the masks are members of our community and will need all our patience, love, and understanding when this madness passes and it comes time to re-integrate them into society. Germany did it, South Africa did it, we can do it too.
To the National Guard members caught up in this—and I know some of you are our neighbors, our kids' coaches, the people we see at the grocery store—you need to know something important.
You're required to disobey orders that violate the law (Human Rights First) That's not my opinion, it's the law.
The Manual for Courts Martial says you can defend yourself if you refuse an order that any person "of ordinary sense and understanding would have known to be unlawful" (War on the Rocks).
And history teaches us something: In Iraq, 39 service members were charged with crimes against civilians. Twelve got convicted. Sentences ranged from 45 days to 25 years (Wikipedia). Following illegal orders has real consequences. The troops and ICE agents have sworn oaths to the constitution and most probably still share the dream of a country where all are welcome, free, and flourishing. It might seem far off now, but we still believe in this otherwise we wouldn't be fighting the overthrow of our values. Many ICE agents have left the agency over the recent shift in focus and troops have the right to refuse this work if they think they're being asked to do anything illegal. While our courts might be weakened and in disarray now, the prospect of being prosecuted for violating the law must occur to them and maybe even keeps some of them awake at night.
We may have more pressing things to do right now than empathize with our aggressors, but that will come in time because, like all the people we serve, it's your humanity we're concerned with.
Our Work Continues
For many of us, this work is a calling, and we won't be frightened off by threats and intimidation.
LA is 10 million people strong and we are more powerful than we realize. California has the 4th largest economy on the planet and we grow most of the produce for the US and, unless ICE and the guards want to harvest all that food, they better stop detaining people working in the fields. Doing harm to us harms everyone.
We are organizing faster and better than ever before and we are changing this narrative. The Trumpists won't be around forever. America is too unwieldy to rule like they want to rule. At our core, each of us wants the freedom to live life the way we choose, and for the past 250 years, our constitution has been the framework moving us slowly toward the realization of that dream. Only in the past few months has it been seriously thrown off track.
I'll end with one of the most powerful poems I've ever read (or heard as song, thank you, Joni Mitchell). In case you don't know it, Yeats composed this after WWI was over and while the Spanish Flu pandemic was claiming the lives of millions. If such a great work can be framed in very few words, it asks, after all this tumult, what's next?
And the answer is up to us.
Stay safe.
Paul
P.S. - If you want to help, if you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem, reach out. SecondGrace.LA https://secondgrace.la We need people who care more about humanity than documentation status. Always have, always will.
The Second Coming
by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Tags: LettersToTheHoused, ImmigrationJustice, MacArthurPark, ICEOperations, SocialJustice, CommunityBuilding, SecondGraceLA, HumanRights, ResistanceWork, SocialChange, CommunityFirst, ImmigrantRights, HealingCentered, MutualAid, CommunityWisdom, MilitaryDissent, ServiceEthics, LosAngeles park was nearly empty, as word of a potential raid had spread through the community (Associated Press).