ICE Holds Activist After Poetry Reading

By D.H. KERBY

Jose Bello is a college student and farmworker in Bakersfield, Calif., who is being held in lieu of $50,000 bond at Mesa Verde, Calif. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Facility; he was arrested in May, 36 hours after reciting his poem, “Dear America,” in which he criticized US immigration policy. He read the poem at a meeting of the Kern County Board of Supervisors.

The Southern California ACLU and the literary civil liberties organization PEN America said in recent statements that they are both very concerned that Bello’s arrest was in retaliation for the lawful exercise of his First Amendment rights, and the ACLU has filed a habeas corpus action in District Court for Northern California alleging violation of those rights.

Bello also has the support of the United Farm Workers.

Mesa Verde Ice Processing Center is run by GeoGroup, a private detention corporation, and in 2016, ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight concluded that the facility had deficiencies in sexual assault prevention, use of force, food service, and medical care.

Bello, who was brought to the US as a 3-year-old child and who has a 1-year-old son, has a yearly income of $20,000, and the ACLU lawsuit asserts that his $50,000 bond is onerous.

Officials previously had detained Bello for deportation in May 2018, but a federal immigration judge ordered his release on $10,000 bond, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Bello was arrested in January 2019 for driving under the influence and pleaded no contest, according to Kern County court records.

After his arrest, Bello told ICE officers that he desperately needed to use a restroom; he was not allowed access to one so that he ultimately wet himself. He was forced to remain in soiled clothes for hours.

Their petition refers to several other cases in which ICE has allegedly retaliated against pro-immigration activists for their political speech or other lawful political activities. The court action cites a National Public Radio Report titled “See the 20+ Immigration Activists Arrested by the Trump Administration,” which aired on March 16th, 2018.

The ACLU”s lawsuit quotes US Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY): “These are well-known activists who’ve been here for decades, and [ICE is] saying to them: Don’t raise your head.” in 2018 U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) stated: “I have long suspected that very vocal advocates were harshly targeted after they spoke out. . . . I would go to . . . an immigration hearing, and the person who made the biggest impression? I’d find out that they’d been detained. And that started last year.”

Bello’s poem reads in part, “Dear America, / You and your administration cause fear—fear through separation. /Instead of building trust with our people, do you prefer this racial tension?/ Oppressed. / I live my life in frustration: private prisons, political funding, mass incarceration, / you make the connection./I speak for the victims that pay for this scam: Vietnamese, Jamaican, African, Cambodian, Mexican, Salvadoran, on and on,/together we stand./ We demand our respect./We want our dignity back. / Our roots run deep in this country, now that’s a true fact.”

According to the ACLU lawsuit, “Since January 2017, federal immigration authorities across the country have engaged in a pattern and practice of targeting outspoken immigrant rights activists who publicly criticize US immigration law, policy, and enforcement. Federal immigration authorities have investigated, surveilled, harassed, raided, arrested, detained, and even deported these activists in order to silence them. They have arrested activists immediately following press appearances and news conferences. They have detained spokespeople and directors of immigration advocacy organizations. They have surveilled the organizations’ headquarters and targeted their members.”

D.H. Kerby is a writer in Philadelphia. Email DHKerby@alum.Swarthmore.edu.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2019

Populist.com