After a 15-year contract was announced to make re-entry and rehabilitation center Delaney Hall into an immigrant prison, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued the massive private prison corporation GEO Group. In May, 20 armed, masked federal immigration officers arrested Baraka for “trespassing” near the facility.
Baraka stated that New Jersey should disallow private prisons for ICE detainment — and all private prisons, period. Baraka isn’t alone. Newark is a sanctuary city.
During the Reagan administration, sanctuary cities were designed to support Central American asylum-seekers whose applications had been denied. The FBI and INS retaliated, from recording private conversations to infiltrating Bible study groups, and filing 71 indictments against sanctuary workers. Criminalizing sanctuaries is part of a historical pattern, one that includes punishing anyone harboring “fugitive slaves.”
Trump’s administration threatened to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, and using the Justice Department to sue Denver for “obstructing federal immigration enforcement.” After his May 15 hearing, Mayor Baraka said the administration was attempting to “humiliat[e], degrad[e], and demea[n]” him. The trespassing charge is actually expected to go to trial.
“[F]ear is the point,” reflected Afro-Dominican writer Annell López, “to overwhelm and stun democratic hubs into inaction and paralysis and eventually, compliance and submission.” This fear is valid with lives at risk. And, dissenting for what’s right is never wrong. Ancestors who protected our most vulnerable, from the enslaved to those classified as “illegal,” are our north stars — reminding us where our collective power lies.