Isreal Resendiz Hermandaz was detained at the end of January this year. Leaving behind two young daughters, a wife and two businesses.
While in his time as a detainee, Hermandaz went on a hunger strike for 18 days to bring his pain and suffering to attention. His wife has been fighting nonstop and doing press conferences, and got arrested in Washington D.C., sending a message to President Obama that he has the power to stop deportations and to return her husband back to their family if he wanted to.
On Tuesday, March 18, Jasmine Rivera, Organizer at Juntos, came to Cabrini College to speak to students, faculty and staff about the Liberation Theology and Mobilization Latinos in Norristown.
Harmandaz’s story is just one of so many. The reality of what is going on in Norristown happens every single day. Local police in Norristown started collaborating with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement Agents in 2012, by the use of traffic checkpoints.
Just within the past year there were 600 deportations in Montgomery County and 500 deportations in Philadelphia County.
Sporadic checkpoints completely shattered the trust between the Latino community and local police enforcement. Unfortunately, the police in Norristown are of an older school mentality and are not very reflective of the current population Norristown, which is 33% Latino.
Over forty stories of abuse were collected, all at the hands of local police, ICE Agents released at a press conference.
This fear is so pervasive in the community that there are many community members who don’t even want to share their story one on one let alone share their stories for everyone.
Emma Jacobs, a reporter at WHYY, did her own investigation on an article where she contacted the local police and requested tickets that were issued on the days that there were checkpoints. She looked at all the tickets that were being issued, and of the tickets that were issued on the checkpoint dates, 60% of the tickets issued were Latinos.
“She was able to prove racial profiling,” Rivera said. “And as we all know, that’s illegal. The local police were breaking the law.”
As a result of the combination of the grassroots mobilizing press and media coverage, the administrator and the Chief of Norristown Police, resigned.
Since September 2012, there have not been any checkpoints with ICE in Norristown, and last year on March 23, 2013 the borough of Norristown officially stated they would not collaborate with ICE in the future.
“That was a huge victory for us, but we continue to fight,” Rivera said. “Unfortunately, checkpoints are still occurring, that is an issue we are currently dealing with right now. Although the checkpoints are not being done with ICE Agents, they are being done to stop people specifically whether or not they have a license.
Since 2009, in the state of Pennsylvania, if you are undocumented you cannot have a license. Where state officials stripped over 500,000 people across the state of their legally obtained license.
Currently there is a bill in Harrisburg that will allow any Pennsylvania resident regardless of immigration status to obtain a license
“In Norristown if you don’t have a license, you don’t work,” Rivera said. “And we all know that you can’t just survive on happy thoughts and butterflies, you have to work for a living.”
Since 2009, in the state of Pennsylvania, if you are undocumented you cannot have a license. Where state officials stripped over 500,000 people across the state of their legally obtained license.
Currently there is a bill in Harrisburg that will allow any Pennsylvania resident regardless of immigration status to obtain a license
“In Norristown if you don’t have a license, you don’t work,” Rivera said. “And we all know that you can’t just survive on happy thoughts and butterflies, you have to work for a living.”
