Yale students protest SB 1070

While looking at the box scores of the Celtics the other night, I received a gmail update. I had one new message. It was from my sister, Ariela Rothstein; a senior at Yale University. Attached to the email were a series of photos. This was one of them.

My sister was using a megaphone, while others watched. Also, there were people in handcuffs? What was happening? I checked her facebook profile, hopefully a status update or a friends’ wall posting would clear up my confusion, but I was drawn to her new profile picture.

What is SB 1070? It is a new law recently passed by the State Legislature of Arizona that makes it a misdemeanor for foreign nationals to lack proper immigration papers. Alicia Menendez explains the significance of the bill:

“But since it’s impossible to identify a foreign national by sight, it effectively mandates that all individuals in Arizona carry papers.  That’s right: you, American citizen, can’t walk your dog or buy milk from the grocery store without having papers on you that confirm your legal residence.  If you take your kids to the park and forget your documentation at home, you can be held in police custody until your information is verified, even if you’re a U.S. citizen. The legislation directs police officers to inquire as to immigration status on a “reasonable suspicion” that a person might be undocumented.”

“Reasonable suspicion?” That sounded a lot like “all deliberate speed,”- the words used in Brown v. Board of Education that allowed school boards to justify not making any changes. My  mother, who is from Mexico, received her US citizenship in the early 1990s- would I have to show personal identification? Was I someone who looked reasonably suspicious? I even wore a t-shirt with a photograph of Emiliano Zapata the other night.

New Haven is no stranger to immigration issues. In the summer of 2007, an ICE raid detained 29 illegal immigrants. New Haven’s Mayor swiftly responded, claiming the raid was in retaliation to a Resident ID card the city planned to issue to immigrants. It would allow them to open bank accounts, and use other city public services. The Bush administration adamantly supported the raids.  In 2009, Cardozo Law School released a report  questioning the purpose of similar type of raids that were happening around the country.

“The evidence demonstrates that the large majority of arrests made during home raids carried out under these operations are not of high priority targets but are rather collateral arrests of mere civil immigration status operators. “

Some students at Yale were outraged by the passage of the law, and felt it was too far removed from the experiences of the average college student. “It is one thing to hear folks are being asked to show documentation,” Ariela told me,”but it adds another level of immediacy to witness the violent and militarized way residents of this country – from citizens to undocumented – are handled when they are under suspicion under the new AZ law.’

The student organizers, which included representatives from Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Mecha), Jews for Justice and Fierce Advocates, and the Undergraduate Organizing Committee decided to stage a mock raid. Elizabeth Gonzalez, one of the lead organizers described the scene:

At 12:30, we released our “ICE agents,” who hounded unsuspecting students and demanded to see proof of residency. When students failed to procure the proper documents, we handed them an informative citation that explained that, if this were Arizona, they could have been detained. At 12:45, our leading Sheriff stood on top of a chair and shouted into a megaphone, “This is a raid!” Immediately, our agents rushed to the “undocumented students” we had planted throughout the dining hall, handcuffed them, and pushed them to their knees in the center of the dining hall. One by one, we stood and explained our demonstration through a megaphone held up to our lips. We informed the community of the passage of S.B. 1070 and the subsequent multi-agency raid on our communities in Arizona. Finished, we walked handcuffed and surrounded by ICE agents down Commons’ main aisle to disappear through Morse’s closing walls.

In an age of over information, it is often difficult to filter through the news that matters. Sometimes it takes student organizers to interrupt your lunch, or simply an email from your sister to highlight what is important. Thankfully,  this type of student activism still exists on college campuses today.

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