Yesterday on July 19th at around 7:45 AM, Dare to Struggle intervened in the ICE detention of Ever Daniel Velazquez on North Lamar and Longspur blvd., during which his partner who is 6 months pregnant, his 6-year-old daughter, and three DTS members were brutalized by federal agents.
It is well known to us that across the state of Texas, and especially in the Rundberg area, that DPS not only works closely with ICE, as we’ve heard reports coming from people in the area that say that ICE agents have been seen in the state trooper’s vehicles, but also does their dirty work for them. In all of the detentions we have witnessed ourselves, as well as those that the families of detainees have recounted to us firsthand, detentions in Austin begin with a traffic stop by State Troopers, Travis County Sheriffs, or APD, who then hold people under the pretext of a federal warrant while they call ICE to kidnap them, often leaving people’s cars turned on in the street with their doors open. At Rundberg in particular, they stake out the main artery of the area, North Lamar, waiting in parking lots or behind bushes to catch people driving on their way to work, church, or grocery shopping in the morning or evening. They often tell people that they are only going to give them a warning for whatever reason the pigs allege they stopped them, only to sic ICE on them, who is waiting for their call just down the street.
DTS approached the stopped vehicle and Ever told us that State Trooper Hoffman had not yet explained to him why he had been pulled over, but that he provided Hoffman with a valid driver’s license. State Trooper Hoffman immediately met us with aggression yelling at us to get back and that he would “take our butts to jail” if we didn’t stop what we were doing, talking with the family. Hoffman alleged that the reason for his traffic stop was that he had seen Ever’s 6-year-old child in their backseat without a seatbelt on, but Ever’s partner has told us that Hoffman turned on his lights from a great distance behind them, a distance from which he could not possibly see into their backseat, and what’s more, the child was in fact fastened in her car seat when they were pulled over. After our interaction with him, State trooper Hoffman once again approached Ever’s vehicle, and we overheard him ask Ever his country of origin, to which Ever replied “Honduras”. This is an unacceptable line of questioning for any government official, and especially a member of the Texas Highway Patrol during a traffic stop, it constitutes discrimination on the basis of Ever’s nationality, and it informs the real reason behind why Hoffman pulled Ever’s family over yesterday.
Shortly after this, another State Trooper arrived at the scene, and very quickly after that, an unmarked grey SUV drove into the parking lot. It became immediately clear to us that this traffic stop was being escalated into an ICE detention, and we made the decision to intervene in their kidnapping attempt. We placed ourselves in between the driver’s side of the vehicle and the approaching ICE agents, blocking the driver’s side door with our hands raised. ICE agents immediately began ordering us to get back and shoving us away from the vehicle and in the scuffle, one member was grabbed by an ICE agent and slammed against the body of the vehicle while another ICE thug drew his mace and continued to order us to get back. We told the family to raise the windows anticipating the use of mace to incapacitate us, but weren’t fast enough to respond, ending up getting maced twice with some of the mace getting inside of the family’s vehicle. We were grabbed and thrown away from the door, and this is when Ever courageously decided to flee. ICE had not yet interacted with him, the traffic stop was over, and pepper spray had just entered his vehicle hitting his entire family. DPS immediately pursued and were able to catch up to them shortly after.
When we met up with the family later in the evening, they explained that they arrived at their apartment complex where Ever bravely told his wife to run in the opposite direction of him with her child. Ever was later tackled and knocked unconscious after being chased by State Troopers with their guns out. Meanwhile, his pregnant partner and her 6-year-old child knocked on apartment doors asking to be hidden, and eventually took to hiding under a rug that someone left as trash outside their apartment, all while experiencing excruciating pain from the pepper spray that hit them in their faces. After waiting for the pigs, both DPS and ICE, to leave, they returned to their car to find it rummaged through with no sign of their phones, wallets, or car and house keys. The pigs even went as far as to rob them of money they had gotten earlier that same day after the family cashed a check.
The three DTS members who were sprayed were incapacitated for several hours due to the excruciating pain that made clear this was not ordinary pepper spray. Our skin was extremely inflamed with rash for hours, and while pain eventually subsided, exposure to heat or sunlight up to 24 hours later led to pain and other symptoms reappearing. One DTS member is suffering from bruising and inflammation on their arm as a result of being slammed against the car and on thrown on the ground. When we met with Ever’s partner, she was also still in pain from the pepper spray and explained her pregnant belly felt stiff. This is one of hundreds of cases that happen every month in the Rundberg area that is constantly under siege by DPS who continues to carry out ICE’s dirty work. It is not only in cases of extreme brutality and death such as in the case of Lorenzo Araujo in Houston, or Joan Guerrero in Maine, that public must unite in their outrage against ICE’s atrocities.
While we were recovering, some of us went back to speak to the vendors and people in the area, who all agreed that what we did was right, that they appreciated and wished for others to also put their bodies and lives on the line. One of the vendors told us that he believed if there were more groups of people doing what we did, trying to throw sand into the mass deportation machine, that it would embolden immigrants to be less afraid to go out and lead normal lives. Ever’s partner also told us that even with everything that happened, she appreciated what we did since it allowed her and her daughter to get away, as she felt that ICE would have also taken them due to her immigration status.
Ever was processed at the South Texas Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas and the family is going to fight to liberate him. He has been in the US since he was four years old and was waiting for the birth of his child only a few months away. This was one of hundreds of cases of kidnappings that happen every month in the Rundberg area, and without a mass movement that is sustained and organized, there will be no end to them. While we were trying to recover from the pain and injuries that the feds rained down on us, we witnessed three more traffic stops that occurred in the same block as us. There cannot only be three people confronting these thugs when they kidnap people. In order for these kidnappings to end, there needs to be thousands of us in the street every time a pig does us harm. It will take masses of people rising up, emboldened to take a stand, and unleashing their fury on the deportation machine. Only then will these state thugs be held accountable by the people.
At this moment, the infrastructure of ICE is bursting at the seams as a result of their savagery. They have too many cases to go through. The detention centers are packed and understaffed, the courts are overflowing with cases with months of waiting even if people do sign self-deportation orders, and out in the streets, people are simmering with rage at what they see happening around them every day. People inside the detention centers have been going on hunger and labor strikes to demand their freedom, people outside have been throwing down and trying to throw sands in the gears of the deportation machine. We see it as our responsibility to continue throwing down with them, with the people inside and outside that are putting their lives on the line to bring an end to this terror, to bring an end to the detention centers, to bring an end to the fear that immigrants feel every day. Imagine if just a fraction of the people that attended the parades put on by No Kings went to confront the detention centers and demand their closures, ICE would not be able to handle it and we could be the hammer that pops the seams.
We believe that the people can bring an end to ICE, but that won’t mean that immigrants in this country will be free. The oppression and exploitation of immigrants in this country is integral to its functioning. From the Chinese Exclusion act in the late 1800s to now, the only time that immigrants have been welcomed into this country has been for the ruling class to exploit their labor. ICE can be brought to an end, but for the oppression and exploitation of immigrants to end in this country, there must be an overthrow of the system that necessitates its functioning towards one that is responsible to the people and not the ruling class. The struggle for the liberation of immigrants and all of those who have been oppressed will go on until there is a revolution that can bring it to an end. Fuck your borders, we want the world. Join us on August 1st at the T. Don Hutto Detention center for our Viva La Huelga protest, joining the hunger strikers to demand an end to the detention centers and to free all of those who have been kidnapped.
Dare to Struggle 