Vol. 71/No. 48      December 24, 2007

Militant/Edwin Fruit

Immigrant workers and their supporters protest arrests and harassment in Pacific, Washington, November 26.

Workers in the area told the Militant that cops in Pacific, a town 30 miles south of Seattle, are known for routinely stopping immigrant workers, asking about their legal status, and hauling them to an immigration jail if they don’t answer to their satisfaction.

Two local groups, El Comité Pro Amnistía El Sur and the Auburn Jubilee Center of St. Matthew Episcopal church, have circulated a fact sheet giving examples of the police harassment in Pacific. In July, for example, a worker was pulled over for a traffic violation. The cop spotted in the car a flier from the May 1 Seattle march demanding the legalization of undocumented workers, and told him “that these activities may be ok in Seattle but they are not accepted in Pacific,” according to the fact sheet.

Despite the fact that he was a legal resident, the cop turned in the worker to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He was locked up in the Northwest Detention Center in nearby Tacoma and spent eight days waiting for a hearing. Representatives of the two immigrant advocacy groups met with Pacific mayor Richard Hildreth, who said he would issue an order that police stop asking drivers about their immigration status during minor stops. The harassment, however, continued and immigrant rights defenders began attending city council meetings to voice their protests. Police attempted to deny immigrant rights groups a permit to march here in September. The cops told organizers that if the march occurred demonstrators would be arrested. Eventually authorities backed down and allowed the march, although the police tried to intimidate protesters with the presence of a SWAT team during the march. At the November 26 city council meeting, Hildreth presented a new draft policy toward immigrants specifying that local police will not transport detainees to the immigration jail and that under “normal” circumstances they will not ask drivers about their immigration status. Speaking at the meeting, Dianne Aid of the Jubilee Center objected to the presence of half a dozen police officers inside and outside the chamber at the city council meetings and noted its intimidating effect on immigrant workers who wanted to attend.

One of the speakers at a rally after the city council meeting was an immigrant worker who lives in Pacific and is active in El Comité Pro Amnistía. He responded to charges that “outside agitators” were stirring up problems in the town. “The Latino community in Pacific asked for help in addressing the situation we faced, and we are glad that individuals and organizations responded,” he said.

Among those at the November 26 protest were representatives of the Jubilee Center, El Comité Pro Amnistía, New Hope Lutheran Church in Pacific, Jobs With Justice, Socialist Workers Party, the University of Washington chapter of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, and students from Seattle University.
 
 
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