Feature Archives

Seventy years ago this month, Mussolini's government published a "Manifesto of Race", which lead to racial laws persecuting Jews, Roma and members of other ethnic minorities groups. Now, the country's rightwing government has again stepped up special measures against an entire ethnic group. In late June, the Italian Interior Minister announced that a file is to be drawn up containing a DNA data base with digital fingerprints and photos of every Roma in Italy, irregardless of their citizenship. One popular Italian magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, denounced the move as "an indecent and racist proposal" reminiscent of "when Jewish children were identified with a yellow star on their sleeves".

A traveler who spends most of his time in SF and NY is being held at the Northwest ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. He is known locally from Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, and various tenants' rights, homeless rights, bike rights and animal rights activities among other things. He was arrested at the end of May for trespassing to watch the sunset from a roof of a building in Seattle and spent some time in county jail. An ICE raid took place at the jail and he was transported to the Northwest Detention Center because his citizenship status is in question.

On May 22, more than 2,000 Berkeley High School students of all different nationalities streamed out of class and formed a human chain around the school to protest the escalating attacks on immigrants. As they linked arms, they chanted “Immigrants are people!” A young woman with the group Fighting for Immigrants’ Rights and Equality (FIRE), which organized the protest, said, “Most of the school went out with us… Ooooh it made the whole school feel good, like we were a family, no matter what race you are or nothing, like we were together.”

On June 5th, after a federal judge cleared the way, Blackwater Worldwide, the 'World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army', opened a large training facility in San Diego, just three blocks from the border that separates California and Mexico. Blackwater is setting its sights on the so-called "war on drugs" and recently opened its own private CIA, called "Total Intelligence Solutions," marketing "CIA-type services" to Fortune 500 companies. On Wednesday, June 11th, local groups in San Diego are organizing a major protest outside the Blackwater facility at 7685 Siempre Viva Road in Otay Mesa.

On May 30th, the Movement for Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA) organized a rally and press conference at Beach Flats Park in Santa Cruz to denounce recent raids by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). Community members, union representatives, religious leaders, students and other local activists created a space for community members to become informed of their rights if approached by ICE agents.

anarchists write, "Over the last week, we took out six surveillance cameras from the exteriors of four different buildings on the University of California in Santa Cruz campus. This was an act of rebellion to the social control in our daily lives. These cameras are the eyes of the police. This task was easy to accomplish, and would be easy for anyone to reproduce."

Thousands of immigrants and their supporters around the country and in San Francisco marched in favor of a more just immigration policy for the US on May 1st. The next day, 63 immigrant workers from El Balazo Taquerias were raided and detained by ICE. Immigrant rights groups, labor, faith-based groups, and many others will gather for a press conference and rally to denounce the Bay Area raids, and to support the taqueria workers on the day of their first court hearing. They will gather on Tuesday, May 27th at 10 am outside of the Homeland Security Building at 630 Sansome St., in downtown San Francisco.