(Chicago) Maria was selling her traditional Mexican dishes on the streets of Chicago when, suddenly, she was arrested and put in a van, a victim of Donald Trump’s repressive immigration policies.
The scene took place on Friday, his son told AFP, and more than 24 hours later, his family had still not received any news on his situation from ICE, the federal agency responsible for arresting undocumented migrants across the country, a cornerstone of the American president’s anti-immigration policy.
After the arrest of this mother of seven children, born in Mexico and who has lived in the United States for 20 years, her family gathered up her belongings, removed her traveling cart with her umbrella and set out to search for her.
“It could take days, months, years, or we could very well never see her again,” says her son, Eduardo Santoyo, 22 years old.
PHOTO OCTAVIO JONES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Eduardo Santoyo’s (pictured) mother, Maria, was tending to their business Friday morning when she was arrested by agents from ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
“What are we going to tell my sister?” “, he says, speaking of Maria’s youngest child, aged six.
The raid, carried out in broad daylight, illustrates the modus operandi of the immigration police, who appear without prior warning to arrest an undocumented person and take them away, leaving their loved ones in anguish and the unknown.
Alerts
Dozens of such arrests took place this week in Chicago, the country’s third largest city. Several of them were revealed to the general public through videos posted online.
Groups are alerting the Latin American community, Donald Trump’s main target, on social networks about upcoming raids so that they can escape them.
In Chicago, most raids are carried out in neighborhoods like Cicero, Little Village and Pilsen, where the National Museum of Mexican Art, considered the largest Latino cultural institution in the United States, is based.
But the entire city is affected by the raids: some were carried out on a construction site in the suburbs, others next to a university building, near shopping centers or even at the Chicago airport, where 12 VTC drivers were arrested, according to local media.
So residents demonstrate, particularly in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, in front of an immigration police center. Some were sprayed with tear gas and arrested.
“It’s racism”
“You may not see the raids, but it affects our community,” says Casey Caballero, 37, a stay-at-home mother married to a naturalized American.
She points out what, according to her, amounts to racial profiling on the part of the police.
Eduardo Santoyo, Maria’s son, has American nationality, but fears that his status will not change the actions of the agents who, he criticizes, choose their targets based on skin color and language spoken.
“It’s racism,” he says. “If they come for me, I have papers, but how can they know? »
A few kilometers from where Maria was arrested, another woman sells tamales, a traditional dish made from corn dough and filled with various ingredients.
When she learns that Maria has been arrested, she bursts into tears. “Anyone” could be caught in police raids, she laments.
Nae Campbell, who often bought Maria’s meals, does not mince words about the immigration police raids, “the most inhumane act” that it is.
“These people settled here, they have their families here,” they created their own businesses and businesses, and federal agents “simply stripped them of their lives, it’s crazy,” says the 32-year-old hospital employee.
But, she hopes, “the community will mobilize to support them”.
