Athens Immigrant Rights Coalition to ICE: We're watching

The Athens Immigrant Rights Coalition held a press conference on Thursday, February 27 at noon outside city hall in Athens, Georgia to announce the formation of their Rapid Response Team. This team will monitor the activity of Immigration of Customs Enforcement in Athens, making sure that they are following the law, spreading news of their actions and doing what they can to assist affected community members.

Check out the AIRC website here:

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TRANSCRIPT

The Athens Immigrant Rights Coalition held a press conference to announce the formation of their rapid response team, which will nonviolently monitor and oppose the activities of federal immigration police in Athens, Georgia.

“So our Rapid Response Team now has almost a hundred members, as I said, and what we do is we mobilize to nonviolently observe and witness ICE and federal immigration enforcement activity in our community. And we support the people who are being targeted by that activity."

"We have first responders. When we hear a report that there might be ICE activity or other immigration enforcement activity here in our community, the first responders go out and they verify what's going on. And if we need to mobilize, then the next people to get to the scene are trained as legal observers. And those folks are trained in documenting and observing the activity that's going on and trying to ensure people's rights, all their rights, are respected because everybody has rights! Everybody has rights. It doesn't matter how you came to this country. It doesn't matter whether you have papers, the right papers or not. You are a human being, you have rights."

"And the third group of people that we have trained are trained as what we call agitators. And they are there to support the people being targeted by the activity, to remind them of their rights, to show them that they are not alone, to show them that we are watching, to show them that we do not agree with what's being done to them."

"The basic message that we have for the community and for the presidential administration and for immigration authorities is that whatever you do here in Athens, we are watching. We are watching, we are documenting it, we are going to make sure that you're following the law. If you're not following the law, you're gonna hear about it. ‘Show me the warrant,’ he says."

Watch the full video on AthensPoliticsNerd.com.