Protest I.C.E. Raid in Chicago!

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

The following letter, addressed to U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was issued by the Partisan Defense Committee on April 30.

The PDC vigorously condemns the 24 April raid on the Little Village shopping mall, in the heart of Chicago’s Mexican American community. While hundreds of people, including children and the elderly, conducted their business, the whole shopping mall was locked down by a heavily armed and armored team of I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and FBI agents, ostensibly to break up a “bustling counterfeit identification document business.” At least 160 Latino shoppers were rounded up at gunpoint, handcuffed and lined up against a wall, and four were arrested. That same day, eight more people were arrested in the Chicago area.

These raids are an outrageous act of blatant intimidation in anticipation of this week’s immigrant rights rallies, and part of the pattern of increasing numbers of raids, arrests and deportations being carried out nationwide by the federal government. We demand: free all those arrested and drop the charges now!