THEY ARE KILLING US OFF in the dark. These trapdoors swinging open, these cells swinging shut. These are not just “my people.” These are, in fact, all of our people. A “migrant worker” or an “immigrant” is just a word. An “illegal alien” is a human being just like all of us. A living, eating, working, hoping, fearing, dreaming human being.
THEY ARE KILLING US OFF in the dark. ICE, these raids, these politicians who spray fakery or hate, these trapdoors swinging open, these cells swinging shut. These are not just “Latinos,” not just “my people.” These are, in fact, all of our people. That is why this is important. Not even because it is gente from Mexico, from Central and South America, or raza from Chile, El Salvador, Cuba, or Puerto Rico.
But because a “migrant worker” or an “immigrant” is just a word. An “illegal alien” is a human being just like all of us. A living, eating, working, hoping, fearing, dreaming human being.
Ana Romero
Here is one, her name was Ana Romero. She was working cleaning houses. That was her crime, that she was here with no citizenship, trying to earn the big US dollar so she could support her 92 year old mother and two full-grown sons enrolled in college in El Salvador. What a criminal. This….this WOMAN. Working so hard in an area that could pay her enough to support four people. What an ALIEN. What an ILLEGAL.
Scooped up and put into jail, and then, oddly, into solitary confinement. No reasons given or documented. Ana reports to people on the phone that something is wrong with her food, it smells wrong.
Later, she complains of great stomach pain. Stops eating. Starts vomiting. Loses 35 pounds.
Is found hanging, dead. Her family is shocked. They don’t see suicide in her makeup.
Oddly, no preliminary autopsy report is given in the normal time frame.
Suspiciously, her jailers refuse to speak to anyone about her death.
Officials won’t say what happened at the Franklin County jail last month to cause the death of Ana Romero, a Salvadoran immigrant awaiting deportation.
Family members say that, shortly before her death Aug. 21, Romero was placed in isolation for refusing to eat. Mario Aguilar said Romero, his sister-in-law, had telephoned several times from the jail saying her stomach hurt and she was vomiting.
Matthew Pippin, a Louisville attorney representing the family of the 44-year-old woman, said an autopsy was performed more than 10 days ago, but a preliminary report has not been released.
“We are befuddled about not having preliminary autopsy results,” said Pippin, who added that he is “certainly concerned about the circumstances surrounding her death.”
The silence mirrors dozens of cases nationwide in which little information is released about deaths in jails and prisons among those awaiting deportation. Congress has recently demanded that more information be made public.
The New York Times recently reported that at least 71 people set for deportation died in custody from 2004 to May 2008. Advocates are now calling for improved health care and suicide prevention measures for the detainees.
Suspicious silence and suspicious death and suspicious refusal to release autopsy reports.
Someone was clearly scared. What did they do to Ana? Why?
Two and a half weeks later, still no autopsy report? They won’t talk to anyone and yet they are investigating it as a suicide.
Her family doesn’t buy it. They have hired someone else to give a second look.
And much of my circle of blogmig@s are organizing to gather signatures for a petition to look into this death and to stop the raids now because this is not an isolated case, as horrible as it is. Like deaths on the border or in the desert, America’s ideals lag when it comes to acting or giving attention to these particular tragedies.
If you are concerned at all with this please do act to send in a signature, electronic or otherwise, to send an email. Instructions are below at the bottom of the petition and bolded. They are simple. (Or you can click “Sign the Petition” button at this site.)
The reason I invite you specifically to act on this one (pero I know how much there is to do in a day, really I do!) is because there are very active people online who can read about this woman supporting herself and her entire family and then being locked up in a dark hole and being ill and vomiting and end up hanged—
and respond as so: !!!
“Life is a series of choices. This woman made hers. Would she be alive had she made only one choice differently? Possibly, but I can say that even Paul Witte, Minister noted above, will agree that it’s all in the hands of God.”
“If this woman had not entered our country illegally she would be alive today. Unlike most illegals who are ordered deported, she was given 90 days to settle her affairs and leave the county. She refused to obey orders which is yet another crime. There is little that can be done if a person refuses to eat. She thought by not eating she would be released from jail and not be returned to her country. She was WRONG and she paid the price. It was her choice.
Deaths of illegals in custody HAS NOT become a national issue as the New York Times, Delahanty and extreamist advocates for illegal aliens in congress have suggested. This is only in their minds. You have to look at who is is talking. The Times is a joke. Delahanty is an advocate for law breakers. None have any credibility.”
“Her religious convictions didn’t prevent her from entering the United States as an ILLEGAL! How could her religious convictions be very strong or did she just cherry pick her convictions?”
“I agree with David. The Herald-Leader just doen’t get it when it comes to illegal aliens. It’s unfortunate when anyone dies, but this woman should not have been here in the first place.”
These are sick, inhumane, weird people. They are hardly human, let alone “American.” They cheer on pain and death of such a good-hearted person and then hide behind a “god” to excuse their sociopathy.
Let us not allow these unfeeling, strange, disconnected humans determine our world. Let’s you and me, who have hearts and rational minds and empathy, be the ones to make up this moving, acting world.
Thank you so much if you do have the time.
PETITION:
Justice for Ana Romero Petition
We,___________ the undersigned family members, organizations, and individuals, motivated by our consciences and our faiths, demand answers to these questions.We demand justice and a transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Ana Romero’s death.
We demand a full reporting of all the information learned, so that her family and loved ones can get an honest and complete explanation of how and why she died in the Franklin County jail and so they may have spiritual closure.
We demand moral, decent, and humane treatment for all persons in jail, regardless of their legal status, national origin, skin color, or language.
We demand the due process rights guaranteed in United States Constitution.
Finally, we ask all public officials involved in this situation, from the federal government, to the Kentucky state government and all other state governments, to the county and city governments all over this land to implement a moratorium on the raids and deportations of immigrants until such time as we obtain a fair, humane, and comprehensive immigration reform that our country so badly needs.
Recently such a moratorium was granted to all immigrants in Louisiana that rushed in after Katrina to do the back-breaking work of helping clean up New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. This moratorium should be implemented nationally and immediately to stop the terror, the destruction of families, and the economic disruptions causing so much fear and grief in our communities.
Let’s solve our broken immigration system in a way that benefits all and treats all fairly, in accordance with national and international standards of justice and human rights.
Shelbyville, Kentucky
September 14, 2008
INSTRUCTIONS:
We are requesting your organization and/or you as an individual consider endorsing the petition. To sign, just reply to one or both of these two email addresses
stating ”We [organization] / I [name] endorse the petition”, including organizational name, personal title, city, (and state if outside of Kentucky), and country (if outside U.S.), as you wish them to appear on the petition.Also, there is this site: http://www.anaromero.org/ which has one working button “Sign the Petition.”
PS: Happy Hispanic Heritage month.
UPDATE:
• Also see guerrera La Mala at VivirLatino.
• and amigo Manuél’s post.
• and hermano Symsess at American Humanity.
• and soldadera Sylvia’s post.
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¿La Nueva Guerra de los Desaparecidos?
This is beyond wrong. This woman did not kill herself. We have to do something.
Done.
gracias.
Desaparecidos, indeed.
I’m still reeling from the reports concerning Hiu Lui Ng, who died at 34 after months of excruciating pain for which he was refused treatment at ICE detainment facilities.
Now, this.
And these are the people with people who will try to fight back for them. What of those who do not have that? We’ll never hear of them. Never.
With this murder, things are even worse,that in order to cover their neglect [or outright mistreatment], they’ve gone to the extreme of making appear as suicide. Or maybe we should think of this as better rather than worse. Maybe they’re at least starting to worry a bit about consequences.
Maybe. But not likely.
The ICE raids are sweeping up PEOPLE and then sweeping them under carpets of secrecy. And the ignorant stand by cheering, not realizing that this is nothing more than practice.
Desaparecidos.
There will be more.
Done, with sorrow and anger.
thank you.
Rafael, I’ve had the same thought playing in my head over the past few days – “La Nueva Guerra de los Desaparecidos”
[...] Nezua writes at The Unapologetic Mexican: But because a “migrant worker” or an “immigrant” is just a word. An “illegal alien” is [...]
[...] Nezua writes at The Unapologetic Mexican: But because a “migrant worker” or an “immigrant” is just a word. An “illegal alien” is [...]
i’m signed up…what happens to any people, happens to all of us. i am heart broken for her mother, her sons, her familia, …for humanity.
[...] on September 18th, 2008 Tell me what is the difference between a woman who is a citizen and a woman who is not a citizen when both can die inexplicably and the system is indifferent as to how it happened? Blanca [...]
I’ve signed the petition
thanks so much to those who took the time to sign!
Either way she was a mother doing what most mothers do…trying to take care of biz!! When are they going to start looking at some of these other people here “illegally” in gangs, raping & killing, & drug dealers…seems to me there’s other things that need attention. The crazy thing is that the jobs that these “illegals” take NO ONE ELSE WANTS!! What’s an ILLEGAL ALIEN anyhow? These people doing all the arrests…how many of their folks ran these plains in loin clothes chasing the bufullo? (not very many or they’d be thinking about their actions)
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