Local opinion: ICE arrest, detention of local mom is unnecessarily cruel

A 45-year-old woman, a Mexican national who has lived in the U.S. since age 4, was reportedly arrested and detained by multiple masked immigration agents on North Stone Avenue after attending a hearing at Pima County Consolidated Justice Court involving an infraction relating to a noise ordinance. This is a travesty.

Due to no fault of her own, this person was brought into this country as a toddler. She was raised as an American. She is a member of our community, not a stranger to us. She is now a middle-aged mom who has been living here in Tucson peacefully virtually her whole life. She has successfully raised her children, who are young adults and are U.S. citizens. This matriarch deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

With good reason, this woman feared filing paperwork to become a U.S. citizen once she had a basis to do so beginning four years ago, because the process would take many years, possibly more than a decade, and could result in her being ejected from the country while it dragged on, having to leave her children, her friends, and her community. She knows no other country than the U.S. She has no home or job or support system in Mexico. She may not have sufficient financial assets to complete the process because of how expensive it can be.

The fact that multiple armed agents in masks apprehended this woman, hauled her away in custody, and took her to a locked detention facility as if she were dangerous was totally unnecessary and intended to instill fear not only in her but in our whole community. This is what fascism looks like.

This woman, who poses no safety threat to anyone in the community, could simply have been issued a paper citation by a single, unmasked agent in a polo shirt and khakis if it were really about getting her immigration paperwork in order. She had already demonstrated that she would respond appropriately to a paper citation, because she did so in the local Justice Court case involving the noise ordinance. Arrest and detention are wholly unnecessary and cruel, as well as being an expensive waste of tax dollars.

A lot of people are commenting on social media about how happy they are to see ICE “doing its job” and “enforcing the law”. These people seem to be wholly unaware of the virtually insurmountable process for certain residents to apply for citizenship in the U.S. It’s relatively easy for people who are European, such as from Slovenia, or who are Asian, such as from India, to immigrate lawfully to the U.S. However, the immigration process is extremely cumbersome and takes years for people who are from Mexico or other countries in Central and South America. Our U.S. immigration laws are nearly impossible to comply with for folks from those countries.

The reality of our immigration laws is that they are now, and for decades have been, unfair and blatantly discriminatory based on ethnicity. Moreover, enforcement of these discriminatory and unfair immigration laws has now become mean-spirited and vicious under the current federal administration. Rather than endeavoring to make the immigration system fair and workable, the current administration has exploited its anti-Latino bias with unnecessary force and cruelty.

The current federal administration has treated peaceful members of our community, including this woman, as if they were dangerous terrorists. There was absolutely no need for multiple agents with guns and masks to apprehend her. There was no need to detain her. There was no need to take her into custody. And there is no reason to keep her in custody now during the time while her immigration case is pending.

If you care about the values set forth in this nation’s Constitution, then you should be standing up and speaking out demanding that this woman be released immediately to her family. There is no legitimate basis whatsoever for holding her in detention. If you think it’s okay to treat a peaceful, middle-aged mother this way, shame on you.