Why did IDP file this FOIA? What has been the experience of trying to get these documents?
Genia: For years, IDP has been supporting people after ICE raids. Our hotline has fielded thousands of calls from individuals looking for help after ICE came to their door and lied to them. We even created a map with descriptions of these scary and traumatizing events and the tactics used by ICE. So when we heard about a propaganda program that was intended to whitewash ICE violence, we reached out to the Center for Constitutional Rights to make a plan for finding out more. The first planned academy led by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, the people in charge of arresting and deporting immigrants, was supposed to be in Chicago, so we also partnered with Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), a Chicago-based group that brought valuable local perspectives.
We initially filed the request for documents in July 2020. Even though the law requires transparency, we had to sue in federal court before we saw any documents. Over time, the group working on this expanded to include Latino Justice PRLDEF and Beyond Legal Aid. We’ve been lucky to have such great partners who bring deep knowledge of FOIA litigation and strategy. The government has fought to limit what information they shared with us. And a lot of what they did produce was redacted. But we have enough to understand a lot about this program, including who was involved, and the goals and potential harm that can come from it.
What have you learned?
Genia: ICE launched these Citizens Academies in 2014 and expanded nationally in 2019 but at that point they were led by and focused on Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). In 2020, it planned to pilot a program in Chicago under Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which is the part of the agency responsible for civil enforcement and executing home raids. The program recruits journalists and other handpicked “community stakeholders” as part of a propaganda campaign to push back against negative opinions about the agency. Their strategy is to develop a secret cadre of “force multipliers,” essentially making ICE stronger and more able to enact violence against immigrants of color.
The presentations include phrases that seem taken from a Hollywood war movie like, “NEVER EVER GIVE UP, NEVER CONCEDE DEFEAT, I Will NOT DIE THIS WAY…” Participants are shown detailed images on where to strike someone with a baton or weapon to to cause different levels of harm. Citizens Academy training incorporates firearms training, which includes hands-on training with weapons and spending hours at shooting ranges. When budgeting, the program includes ammunition in its costs. They even use photos of people holding guns in their publicity about the Academies. All of these things were scary to learn about.
Why does this matter?
Genia: By ICE’s own admission, one of the goals and successes of the program is positive media coverage. But the media plays a key role in either stoking or diffusing violence, which is particularly important right now when there’s so much dehumanizing rhetoric about Black immigrants and immigrants of color. Months before the news about the planned Citizens Academy in Chicago, ICE agents shot a bystander on the street in New York. ICE agents routinely use weapons and approach immigration policing in a militarized way, including when interacting with children, sick and elderly people, and people with mental health issues. On our Hotline at IDP, we’re speaking with the people who have gone through these traumatic experiences and we’ve also tried, through the map and other projects, to make sure that human cost is recognized. The fact that this was a secret propaganda program meant to romanticize this violence is disturbing.
But we should also note that the planned ERO pilot program in Chicago was canceled. We think that is because of the community organizations that mobilized to stop it but we’re still waiting for more documents to understand the decision making and all the factors that were considered. This may be a reminder of the power of immigrant rights groups as a check on destructive ICE tactics.
What’s next?
Genia: We are still getting documents and learning more about the program. We’re actually waiting for documents about the plans for Chicago, which we haven’t gotten, even though that was the original focus of the request.
What we did receive showed that over 30 ICE Citizens Academies were planned for 2020. And many of them were supposed to be in places we think of as immigrant-friendly, like New York City, Los Angeles, Tampa, Dallas, San Antonio, Charlotte (NC), Denver, San Juan, Kansas City, Miami, El Paso, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. So we know the infrastructure for holding Citizens Academies is still in place -- in fact HSI continues to run academies today -- and this is a political tactic that we could see ICE use in the future.
