Pressure Builds on Sheriff Baca as Hundreds March for Termination of LA County Secure Communities Deportation Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 9, 2011

Pressure Builds on Sheriff Baca as Hundreds March for Termination of LA County Secure Communities Deportation Program

WHAT: Hundreds to march for end of deportation dragnet program in Los Angeles

WHEN: Saturday, December 10th, 9:30am to 12pm

Gather at Placita Olvera: 9:30am

Press Conference and rally at LA Men’s Central Jail: 11am.

WHERE: Gather @ Olvera Street, 845 N Alameda St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, then march to and rally/press conference at LA Men’s Central Jail.

WHO: Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN Carwash Campaign), Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Institue of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA), National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC), Dream Team Los Angeles (DTLA), San Gabriel Valley Dream Team (SGVDT), Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC), ENLACE and more.

Hundreds of immigrant community members and allies will march from Placita Olvera to the Los Angeles County Jail on December 10th, International Human Rights Day, to call for an end to the Sheriff’s participation in deportation programs proven to spread racial profiling and separate families.

The march comes on the heels of increased scrutiny of Sheriff Baca due to recent revelations about inmate abuse as well as the Sheriff’s failed attempt to block public access to information about the cost and scope of the Secure Communities program in the LA County Jail.  As Los Angeles County faces the likelihood of running out of jail space this month, Sheriff Baca continues to refuse to release information about people who are being held in the jail on the basis of “immigration detainers” — requests from federal immigration officials to detain individuals suspected of civil immigration violations.  Although complying with immigration detainers is a purely voluntary, Sheriff Baca’s policy is to comply with every detainer request, facilitating deportations at the county’s expense.

“As a proud home to immigrants, programs like S-Comm have no place in Los Angeles. Sheriff Baca’s defense of the destructive dragnet is not just bad policy, it makes all of us less safe. We’re marching to demand an end to S-Comm. In order to keep our city whole and our families together, we need to keep police and ICE separate,” explained Veronica Federovsky, Organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Contact: 

Jorge Mario Cabrera, CHIRLA, 562-243-5559

Chris Newman, NDLON, 323-717-5310