The Seattle-based activist has been a vocal critic of Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center
Maru Mora-Villalpando received the notice just before Christmas: a certified letter from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that marked the start of her deportation proceedings.
This was a deliberate tactic, Mora-Villalpando said, used to silence her and her years of activism fighting for immigrant rights, particularly working against the Northwest Detention Center, a facility in Tacoma that can hold up to 1,575 people, making it one of the largest immigration prisons in the United States.
She was one of several activists this past month subjected to ICE deportation efforts. Ravi Ragbir, an immigrants-rights activist in New York, is being detained until he is deported, and Jean Montrevil was deported to Haiti in January.
If ICE’s intent was to silence or slow down activism, it hasn’t worked.
The detention and deportation of Ragbir and Montrevil sparked protests on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in New York that led to the arrest of several people, including members of the New York City Council.
And Mora-Villalpando has only amplified her work, traveling to the nation’s capital to protest harsh immigration laws for the anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and again on Jan. 29 to attend his State of the Union address as a guest of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).
Mora-Villalpando recently spoke with Street Roots’ Seattle-based sister paper, Real Change, about her activism and impending deportation.
Aaron Burkhalter: What did you think when you received the deportation notice?
Maru Mora-Villalpando: When I saw the logo on the envelope, I realized immediately what it was. I figured that ICE wanted to start a petition proceeding against me. I kind of laughed inside, thinking, “So, they don’t come to my door, they send me a letter instead.” But I also thought immediately, “This is a warning. A warning to stop my work or slow down my work of fighting alongside people detained for our rights and for justice and liberation – and they obviously don’t like what I’m doing, and they’re trying to stop me.”
A.B.: Since you received that order, many others have been detained or deported and sometimes very suddenly: Ravi Ragbir and Jean Montrevil in New York. What does it tell you about what’s going on with ICE, that all of this is happening?
M.M.V.: It’s obviously a very clear direction that they have taken, which is to become a political repression apparatus. We’ve said again and again: ICE was not created to help our communities. It’s not a social service agency. We have departments at the federal level that are supposed to be for people’s lives: The Department of Housing, the Department of Education. This is not such. This is a department that was created against immigrants, and really, against the whole society. Under this new administration, it’s obvious that the war on immigrants that was declared in January last year with the first executive actions, being very specific xenophobic and racist orders to remove us from the country, show that now also Trump has decided to utilize ICE as a police force to silence a dissident. And especially for us in the immigrant justice movement – we are an easy target because of our immigration status.
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A.B.: It would seem to me that actions like this — the deportations, the notices to appear, using immigration enforcement in this way — would have a really chilling effect on activism. How is it changing or informing your work?
M.M.V.: I think the administration, this regime, showed from day one that they are not going to accept anybody that speaks against them or does anything against them. And so we’ve been ready for this for a really long time. The thing that is important to know is that the reason why they want to silence us is because we have been very effective.
We don’t like to do this. People detained risk their deportation, their cases. They risk their lives when they organize. But they know that they have to do it. So we do it, too, knowing that there’s a risk. Because if we don’t do it, things are going to get worse. So when they are sending these warnings to be quiet, to stop doing what we’re doing, the effect is the opposite. They’re just making us stronger. I think this was shown when we decided to go public with my case. The response of the community, not only Washington state but beyond, has been overwhelmingly supportive and positive, and people are ready to continue the fight.
FURTHER READING: Divided by deportation: A story of immigration, family and hard work
A.B.: What kinds of things are you seeing at the Northwest Detention Center now, and what is the nature of your work there?
M.M.V.: I receive calls from the detention center, from people that are saying that they’re worried about me. And they’ve been telling me that I’m not alone. And this just fills my heart, because that’s exactly what we chant outside every time we’re there: “You’re not alone.”
We have our tribunal against the detention center on Feb. 4 at noon. This is the third year we’ve done it, and usually we get at least 200 people. Hopefully we will be announcing a national campaign against ICE. We are going to use testimonies from people detained and formerly detained that expose why we need to shut down these detention centers and why ICE needs to be dismantled.
FURTHER READING: Why immigrant advocates are taking on the prison industrial complex
A.B.: A lot of people might say that this is why we need to get Democrats in the White House, but Democrats haven’t been perfect allies on immigration and deportation either. So I just wondered if you could talk about the difference between the current administration and when Barack Obama was in office. How different is it?
M.M.V.: We warned Obama before he left that you’re leaving this huge machine of detention and deportation in the hands of a xenophobic white supremacy group of people. So the only difference is that ICE didn’t feel so emboldened to do what they like to do, which is to disrupt people’s lives. At least during the Obama administration, we were able to shame the administration. Even the Department of Homeland Security top officials were reachable. At least when we talked to them and said, “Look what your agents in the field are doing,” they responded to that. Now ICE, it’s a rogue agency. They’re not accountable to anybody. And, again, Democrats had the chance in the past to stop the situation from happening, and they didn’t. And now we’re facing the consequences of the lack of response from the Democrats.
A.B: What kind of action would you like to see from people who have the privilege of citizenship?
M.M.V.: We know that these attacks are not exclusively against immigrants or activists in the immigrant justice movement. These are attacks against everybody that doesn’t agree with this regime. For those that have the privilege of saying that they are U.S. citizens, and they’re not going to be threatened with deportation, I think it’s time to step it up. Marching is good, but actually taking real action and following the leadership of those oppressed is better. A lot of people that come our way always come with different ideas. We don’t need new ideas. We just need people ready to follow our leadership. We know what we’re doing. We follow the leadership of people detained. We don’t question them, we just support their decisions.
We’re getting into a point in history where, if people want to continue just being comfortable, all they’re going to do is end up being targeted sooner or later. Like people say all the time, “Oh they’ll come for me today and they’re going to come for you tomorrow.” I don’t want anybody to be a target tomorrow. That’s why I’m going to continue the work.
Courtesy of Real Change News, Seattle.
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