Protesting 'Illegal Raids' Now a Misdemeanor in California?
While The Independent meticulously details the misdemeanor charge against a Southern California labor leader arrested during an immigration protest, they omit the historical context of such 'raids'. These operations, often targeting vulnerable communities, echo past injustices where labor organizing and civil disobedience were met with state force. (See, for instance, the Pullman Strike, or the
'Red Raids' of the 1920s.) It’s almost as if exercising your First Amendment rights to defend basic human dignity has a new, convenient legal hurdle in 'obstruction of a highway.' One might wonder if the 'rule of law' is applied with such vigor when corporate entities exploit undocumented labor for profit, or if this particular labor leader, María Elena Durazo, would be facing trial if she were,
say, protesting a lack of tax breaks for billion-dollar corporations. The focus on a 'misdemeanor' subtly detracts from why she was protesting: the arbitrary, often brutal, separation of families and the disregard for human rights intrinsic to many ICE operations. It appears some acts of conscience are more inconvenient than others.