Yesterday Felix Torres, a 53-year-old resident of the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood, was shot by an immigration agent during a home raid in the northwest side of Chicago. Felix is currently hospitalized and according to reports he is in critical condition.
In response, the People’s Response Team, Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), and Mijente put together the following joint statement: Immigration Raids Make Our Communities Unsafe: Chicago ICE Field Office Enforcement Operations Highlight Clear Violations of Civil and Human Rights.
March 28, 2017
Yesterday’s shooting of Felix Torres by an Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shows that immigration raids make our communities unsafe and expose the heightened militarized tactics utilized by ICE to detain people in our communities. It also highlights reasons why our local governments must take action to stand on the side of immigrant communities, demand accountability and transparency from ICE, and do everything in their power to help this family and prevent future raids from taking place.
The Chicago ICE Field office and its director, Ricardo Wong, have repeatedly planned and executed violent raids in homes, work places, churches, and locations where our communities are supposed to feel safe. These raids have involved firearms, physical force, threats, manipulation, biometric fingerprinting machines, and ruses with the intent to force their way into people’s homes. These are clear violations of our communities civil and human rights.