Angela Gonzales-Torres is a pro-human rights candidate running to represent CA-34. Email is one of the most important ways that we can keep you informed on this critical race, but if you want to stop receiving emails from us, click here. |
John, when I was a young girl, I lived through my father's deportation.
I endured more court proceedings than any child should and saw firsthand how they treated my father — as many deportees, even deported veterans are treated — as if he was disposable, and nothing.
I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s or sister's faces. It took me years to process and understand what happened when he was taken from my life and there was what felt like just silence.
Those feelings come rushing back when I see the terror that ICE is inflicting across the country, in an even bolder and crueler way than when I was a young girl.
The fear and anger rushes up when I see a young woman named Evelyn, just 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, thrown to the ground by a masked ICE officer while she screams, “I am not resisting!” She was aggressively handcuffed, roughly handled, detained for hours, and later released without charges.
Dehumanization comes for us all. Whether immigrant or citizen. Our privileges will not protect us. We aren’t free until we’re all free.
ICE has been detaining and assaulting U.S. citizens in Chicago and across the country: children, workers, even journalists.
Federal agents zip-tied one woman “because she didn’t look like her surname.”
Another man, a U.S. citizen, was shackled and pepper-sprayed.
As The Cut notes, there have been “more than 170 cases in which immigration-enforcement agents have detained U.S. citizens” during Trump’s presidency.
This isn’t about safety. This is about rounding up and discriminating against people based on what they look like.
I’ve lived that fear. I’ve seen families broken apart by policies designed to dehumanize. And I refuse to accept a future where any of us, regardless of citizenship status, can be treated as disposable.
Our fight for immigrant rights is a fight for everyone’s rights. It’s a fight for a country where no one has to prove their humanity to be free.
With urgency,
Angela
