On Tuesday Aug. 12, four leaders from Strangers No Longer (SNL) met with Kevin Raycraft, Acting Regional Director of the MI, OH ICE office. The meeting, which SNL had asked for in a letter tried to deliver to the ICE office a month earlier during their 500 person procession, was arranged through the office of Congressman Shri Thanadar, whose district includes the ICE office in downtown Detroit and who accompanied the group to the meeting.

"It was an open discussion where we expressed our concerns for how ICE prioritizes its arrests and how their actions have created fear in our communities.", said Fr. Dave Buersmeyer, SNL Chaplain who attended the meeting. The meeting focused primarily on two issues: the lack of identification and masks; and arresting and detaining individuals who committed no felony.

Sr. Nina Rodriguez, SSJ and Sr. Valerie Knocke IHM gave heart wrenching examples of people they worked with, or members of their parish, who had no record but were arrested by ICE at the grocery store or workplace. In one case, Sr. Val told of a father of 3, arrested in front of their child's school a few days prior to the meeting, who was suffering from Luekemia and his wife was not able to gain access to provide him with critical medication. Raycraft said he'd look into it. Sr. Nina provide similar examples, which were written up and provided to ICE officials as part of a packet of information at the meeting. The packet also included a statement by State Sen. Stephanie Chang, demanding the release of 16 Hmong residents, arrested earlier in the week.

When the issue of masks and lack of ID was raised, Raycraft insisted his agents do wear identification and challenged the group to give examples of where agents wore masks. When the June incident on Alaska St. in Detroit was given as an example, Raycraft called it "media manipulation", in spite of video tape showing heavily armed masked agents with no badges or other identifiable marks, making an arrest.

“We kept challenging ICE during the meeting, to work with local law enforcement and focus their priorities on violent offenders, gang members and drug dealers, and stop targeting our neighbors at schools, day care centers, workplaces and grocery stores.", said Vicky Kovari, SNL circle member from Gesu Church who also attended the meeting. "One has to wonder whether there just not enough undocumented immigrants who fall into the "violent offender" category."

While ICE gave no indication of any willingness to change their priorities, the meeting was an important way to keep the pressure on ICE. Every congressional district in the State and nation should schedule similar meetings to continue to demand that ICE stop arresting non-felons and re-prioritize their immigration enforcement on known violent offenders.

Link to the Free Press Article