Their rapid-response group spent much of late May and June individually checking out various reports of immigration officers at different locations around central Florida and talking to fearful folks who had flagged those sightings. Ramirez, who works with the Farmworkers Association of Florida, a labor and immigrant rights organization, and her team of about 20 volunteers jumped into action. “There was one week where we had an extreme volume of phone calls of people warning that they had seen officers at very specific spots, at a specific store, for example.” “There aren’t even words to describe the fear the community had,” Ramirez told me recently. Rumors of immigration raids, of an increased police presence on highways and roads, and hypothetical worst-case scenarios were spreading through chat text chains, word of mouth, and social media. Her Orlando-area farmworker organizing group was suddenly fielding what felt like an overwhelming number of calls and texts from concerned neighbors, confused farmworkers, and fearful families. In the first few weeks of May, Yesica Ramirez’s phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.įlorida’s state legislature had just approved SB 1718, a wide-ranging anti-immigrant law that requires businesses to verify the citizenship status of their employees and increases penalties for transporting undocumented immigrants across Florida’s border, among other restrictions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |