Read our feature article “Only Those With the Courage To Fight Have the Courage To Win: Combat and Resist ICE Terror!” here.
On September 16, San Antonio activist Ian Ross will attend his first court date after being indicted by a grand jury on charges of “forcibly resisting or impeding a federal officer” following his arrest on July 31 at a demonstration against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The upcoming hearing will determine whether Ross will receive bond or be held in jail for the duration of the case. San Antonio anti-ICE activists are campaigning for the charges against Ross to be dropped and to provide solidarity to him and his loved ones.
Right to Rebel, a revolutionary student group involved in anti-ICE organizing in San Antonio, organized the protest in response to ICE’s purchase of a massive 640,000-square-foot warehouse in January. The building is located in a predominantly working-class neighborhood on the East Side of San Antonio. ICE says the building will be used as a detention center by the end of September, despite significant unrest from the community since these plans for the site were announced.
GardaWorld Federal, one of the private security firms contracted by ICE to run the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp in Florida, is being contracted to work on the East Side detention center. ICE claims that facilities “will not be warehouses — they will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”
According to Amnesty International, detainees at Alligator Alcatraz are kept in cages with sewage running through them, exposed to insects and heat, given inedible food and water, and placed in solitary confinement where they are chained inside a box and left outside without food and water while exposed to the sun and mosquitoes.
Ian Ross’s case is part of the ultra-reactionary Trump administration’s broader crackdown on anti-ICE protesters that aims to intimidate activists with physical force and trumped-up charges. Escalating violence and terror from the police, ICE, and federal agents against protesters, including the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and mass arrests, has been extensively documented over the past two years, particularly during the mass uprisings in Los Angeles and Minneapolis. This campaign of state terrorism has been directly encouraged by several high-level Trump administration officials, including President Trump himself, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and former US Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino.
Many of those arrested at anti-ICE demonstrations have had their charges dropped due to a lack of evidence, serving mainly to terrorize and disorganize the people and to “make an example” of them.
Right to Rebel is calling on class-conscious workers and progressives around the country to hold meetings and flyerings in support of Ian Ross on September 16 and subsequent court dates, demanding that his charges be dropped and opposing state intimidation of anti-ICE protesters. Updates on the campaign to drop the charges are available on Right to Rebel’s Instagram account.
Image: Anti-ICE protest organized by Right to Rebel. Credit: Right to Rebel.
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