first of all, no human being is illegal. people in power in the U.S. define and redefine what's "illegal" in order to turn a profit. they will always need an "illegal" class/group of people to oppress and extract labor from, and they seek to exploit others without interruption or public disapproval. we should all continue working to protect immigrants' rights in California.
unfortunately, California's government has a history of forcefully detaining individuals whose citizenship status is in question and/or unsatisfactory in the eyes of the law. and California also a history of profiting from mass-incarceration -- usually by forcing detainees to do manual labor for low or no pay.
for example, California's internment of Japanese and Japanese-American civilians began when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's signed Executive Order 9066 after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attacks. the U.S. government made the entire West Coast into a "military zone," giving authorities the power to round up anyone it wanted. by June of 1942, over 110,000 Japanese Americans had been forcefully relocated to the government's internment camps. at these camps, detainees were forced to perform manual labor, including construction of the camps' own infrastructure, farming, and ditch-digging. the conditions of most inmates' labor involved both low wages and exposure to dangerous chemicals. from 1941-1946, California's detainees were held at one of three facilities: Angel Island Immigration Station in the San Francisco Bay, Manzanar Internment Camp in the southeastern part of state, or Tule Lake Internment Camp in the north.
throughout California history, citizenship status has also been denied to many communities of indigenous peoples, which has allowed colonizers to steal land and water from the indigenous by force. so the state and U.S. government used the same strategy for establishing settler cities as the European colonizers used. it should be noted that the 1830 Indian Removal Act further empowered American settlers to violently remove indigenous peoples from their homes. (also the Homestead Act of 1862 was important, and it would be wrong to leave out the significant role played by the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in enabling white settlers to kill and relocate entire indigenous communities.)
genocide and mass detention are morally reprehensible. and yet the United States is always trying to convince the public that the current process of mass-incarceration of civilians is necessary to protect the safety of the country. don't fall for that...
today, California's detention of immigrants happens at the following locations:
215 5th Street
Marysville, CA 95901
425 Golden State Avenue
Bakersfield, CA 93301
10400 and 10250 Rancho Road
Adelanto, CA 92301
501 The City Drive South
Orange, CA 92868
62 Civic Center Plaza
Santa Ana, CA 92701
13502 Music Road
Irvine, CA 92618
7488 Calzada de la Fuente
San Diego, CA 92231
1572 Gateway Road
Calexico, CA 92231
according to a report from the California Department of Justice, in 2018 ICE reported that it had booked 396,448 individuals into its custody, and since 2016 in "public and private detention facilities in California housed more than 74,000 immigration detainees, including youth, from over 150 countries." it's time to stop big companies like Geo Group and CCA from profiting off of detaining innocent people!
thanks for reading! protect immigrant and indigenous peoples' rights!
additional resources:
here are a few (mainly California-based) organizations that work to protect immigrants' and also indigenous peoples' rights, and some resources they offer:
defend against ICE raids toolkit from immigrant defense project
Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (NCCIJ)
Sogorea Te' Land Trust is "an urban Indigenous women-led community organization that facilitates the return of Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone lands in the San Francisco Bay Area to Indigenous stewardship" and the Shuumi Land Tax
from Ice out of CA: Pro-Immigrant Laws in California
California TRUST Act: The TRUST Act (AB 4) went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014. Under this state law, local law enforcement can not hold individuals for extra time in local jail in response to ICE hold requests, with some exceptions.
California TRUTH Act: The TRUTH Act (AB 2792) went into effect on Jan. 1, 2017. Under this state law, local law enforcement must provide know your rights information and copies of any ICE holds, notification, or transfer requests to the individual who is the subject of the request.
Drive California: The Drive California (DriveCA) coalition is a statewide coalition of immigrants’ rights advocates, community-based organizations, service providers, faith-based organizations and workers’ rights advocates. The coalition is committed to successful implementation of AB 60 and drivers’ licenses for all.
other references:
an interesting collection of primary source documents on immigration to the U.S. 1789-1930
California Department of Justice's Review fo Immigration Detention in California
private immigration detention as an industry, article with infographics from worthrises.org and article from GQ
detention timeline from freedomforimmigrants.org