Mary Sanchez
Before the leader of one of the most respected immigrant rights organizations in the nation could get on a flight and come to Missouri, she was issued a threat by one of the state’s politicians.
Sen. Josh Hawley targeted Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), in June.
Hawley sent her a letter, questioning if the California organization she leads was “aiding and abetting criminal conduct.” Specifically, the claim was that her organization was “bankrolling civil unrest.”
Hawley’s letter blamed Salas for widespread protests in Los Angeles, the city’s pushback against immigration raids.
The senator demanded that CHIRLA provide a slew of records — emails, texts, media talking points, donor lists, strategies and any financial records of money that might have been spent in protesting the immigration raids carried out by Homeland Security and other federal agencies.
She came to Kansas City anyway.
On August 5, Salas was a speaker at the UnidosUS convention, the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the nation. Of all the invited participants, she drew the most fervent applause, second only to UnidosUS President and CEO, Janet Murguia.
Murguia is from Kansas City and comes from a well-known family with deep commitments to public service.
Salas’ session was packed, standing room only at the large convention center. She spoke boldly, unequivocally, detailing how in early June CHIRLA began hearing community reports of men, women and some children being held in the basement of a federal building because space had run out in the municipal detention center.
Raids were being conducted across L.A., she said, with federal agents taking people into custody suspecting that they were undocumented.
“We never imagined what was to come,” Salas said. “Our city was overtaken by a federal immigration military force of masked men in military convoys with automatic rifles and other armaments of war.”
The sweeps continued for more than 50 days, with roving patrols of federal agents rounding up people across the city, including at day labor sites and at bus stops.
“The terror only stopped because of our sustained protests,” Salas said – protests along with a class action lawsuit, she added, involving other civil rights organizations.
Shortly before she left L.A. to travel to Kansas City, a temporary restraining order was upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The order is to stop indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven Southern California counties, including Los Angeles.
“The majority of the protests that brought thousands of people into the streets, they were peaceful, and they were nonviolent,” she said.
Salas’ deepest message was to a specific group.
Eight in 10 Latinos are U.S. citizens. At more than 66 million people, Latinos as a demographic are the nation’s largest minority group. Salas spoke to all of them: “I stand before you and I ask you to fight for our rightful place in this country,” she said. “To use your social, your economic, your political power to stop these injustices and the brutality that has been unleashed against us all.”
Appearing on the same panel with Salas was David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union California. Huerta detailed how he had been arrested in June during a protest. He was held in jail for three days, charged with conspiracy to impede an officer, before being let out on bond.
“They hear your voices on the inside,” Huerta said. “Your voices do resonate when they are detained.”
He too emphasized a reaction of nonviolence as being essential to this moment as the Latino community resists the raids and sweeping arrests of undocumented people.
The following day, August 6, federal agents in L.A. conducted what has been called Operation Trojan Horse. Early in the morning, near a Home Depot store, agents were hidden in the back of a rented Penske truck. When the back door opened, they piled out to conduct a raid.
Reports are that more than a dozen immigrants were arrested on suspicion of being undocumented. That news broke long after the panel discussion ended and conference goers attended other sessions.
But it struck with weight in Kansas City.
One Saturday in late May, dozens of members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front had piled out rented U-Haul’s near downtown Kansas City and paraded themselves through the streets. Some carried Confederate flags and chanted about “reclaiming America.”
They didn’t stay long. Police, and citizens who began to protest the group’s presence, were soon on the scene.
But the masks the Patriot Front wore, their uniform outfits, and certainly the use of the rented moving trucks, were eerily similar to the news footage of the agents who took part in the Trojan Horse operation in L.A.
The images, side by side, gave a chilling new weight to the challenge issued by Salas: “This is a defining moment for the Latino community,” she said. “We belong here. This is our home.”
(Readers can reach Mary Sanchez at msanchezcolumn@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @msanchezcolumn.)
