On September 8, 2020 a group of Freedom Fighters used their right to protest to publicly speak out against Tony Pham, the new ICE Director. After being denied a meeting with Tony Pham at his office, they assembled in front of Tony Pham's house in Henrico County, Virginia and held a nonviolent street demonstration to demand accountability from him as the top public official spearheading ICE, an agency that regularly perpetrates human rights abuses.

Protestors used art, signs and chants to condemn Tony Pham and ICE's campaign of terror against migrants, refugees, and poor Black and Brown people and chanted in unity: “Tony Pham is not our family, our families belong with us not in cages.” As protestors left, they were followed and harrassed by spectators.

On Thursday, Oct 8, Nancy Nguyen, was the first protestor to be arrested in Philadelphia. A long- time leader and organizer in Philadelphia, and mother of two, she was arrested by the Philadelphia Police Department with the threat of being extradited to Virginia for allegedly "trespassing and littering" in Henrico County as part of the nonviolent protest that occurred a month earlier.

Nancy’s arrest was a clear act of retaliation and a targeted strategy to intimidate and silence dissent. The Philadelphia Police Department repeatedly and purposefully obscured, withheld, and gave the public misleading and false information to deter our efforts to locate Nancy. As Philadelphia Council Member Helen Gym has concurred, trespassing and littering are low level misdemeanors that would never warrant detention in Philadelphia, much less a concerted interstate law enforcement effort to conduct the arrest.  

Although Nancy was eventually released in response to a nationally-organized campaign to #FreeNancy, the threat was far from over. On Monday, Oct 12, members of Charlotte Uprising and the SEAC Village in North Carolina similarly learned that the Henrico County Sheriffs' Office issued warrants to arrest 8 of their Charlotte activists. As people who have survived and struggled to escape extreme state surveillance and repression, we know that none of us can be safe when our government uses its power to silence us and to disappear our people.

As the Interim Director of ICE, Tony Pham conveniently wields his refugee narrative to justify the gross and inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants in the United States. It is clear from the roles he has taken on -- from acting superintendent at a Virginia jailhouse to, most recently, principal legal advisor for ICE -- that Pham has built a long career in criminal (in)justice that blatantly harms those with the very same refugee/asylum seeking background he shares. In addition to breaking up families and communities, ICE has a long track record of other human rights abuses that have continued under Pham’s tenure -- including misogynistic medical neglect and abuse, sexual assault of detained women, and exacerbation of the current global public health crisis.

The political escalations against the September 8th Freedom Fighters are in line with a violent federal strategy to repress and punish protestors fighting against fascism across the nation. We rise in solidarity with the Black Uprising in their call for abolition and an end to all state-sanctioned violence. We understand that Tony Pham, ICE, the police and federal law enforcement are all part of the same carceral system that has historically weaponized the law to silence anyone who speaks out against the inhumanity of their actions. ICE thrives off a corrupt and racist criminal justice system which has pushed undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, many of whom are our Black siblings, into their hands. Tony Pham’s role in orchestrating intimidation against the Freedom Fighters with armed law enforcement shows his true nature as a puppet of a fascist-leaning federal government.

Henrico Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor, we believe you when you promise to protect every community in Virginia. We applaud your stance on dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline especially understanding that the School to Prison to Deportation pipeline has allowed ICE to terrorize and separate families in our communities.

We are enraged at the actions taken by ICE, Henrico Police Department and Tony Pham. Henrico Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor, if you are on the side of justice, transparency and accountability, we urge you to act in solidarity with those who defend their communities and drop the charges against all protesters present on September 8th who have been targeted for politically motivated reprisal.

We call on all who are against injustice to sign on to this Drop the Charges Demand letter.

Resources

To join the movement to demand to drop ALL charges, use the action tool kit.

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