Tampa, FL: #OccupyICETPA Shuts Down DHS

Report on recent action from #OccupyICETPA in Tampa, Florida that shut down DHS operations.

The DHS/ICE processing center at 5524 W Cypress Ave in Tampa, FL is closed today after 6 protesters locked their necks together in pairs of two at the front door of the building and obstructed the full parking lot of the facility with a parked car. After 11 days occupying the entrance of the building, Occupy ICE TPA protesters have moved onto the property to interrupt its operations and publicly denounce the legitimacy of the state-sanctioned human trafficking operation that is ICE.

On April 6th, the US was scrutinized globally for their “zero-tolerance” policy against immigrants entering the US without documents leaving families to be violently separated at the border with no hope of reunification. Many of the families fleeing central America – refugees of torture, starvation, poverty, rape, and discrimination – are simply seeking safer conditions yet are being denied the most basic of necessities at the border of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.

Over a century of US imperialism has destabilized the Northern Triangle leading to untenable conditions for families living in this region and forcing governments into trade deals which allow us to profit while the people of the land starve. With the US directly responsible for the displacement of families fleeing irreparable economic crisis and violence, the hypocrisy of subjecting them to this turmoil at the border couldn’t possibly be more apparent.

“The profit motive behind this uptick in detentions and arrests is magnified when analyzing the second largest for-profit prison contractor in the US – Geogroup out of Boca Raton, FL.”

The implication of the foreign policy in this region for Florida has resulted in a 76% increase in arrests of immigrants over just the last year – the highest increase in the US in 2017. The profit motive behind this uptick in detentions and arrests is magnified when analyzing the second largest for-profit prison contractor in the US – Geogroup out of Boca Raton, FL. By funneling campaign contributions to the Trump administration through a subsidiary holding firm, they have skirted campaign finance laws and positioned themselves to profit from this abhorrent breach of human dignity being carried out at our southern border. We can no longer tolerate the kidnapping of innocent people, nor the exploitation of asylum seekers at the border by a corporation operating in our own backyard.

Unfortunately, this issue extends beyond our own state—it’s an international human rights issue. There have been over 2000 reports of sexual violence in ICE detention centers over the last two years, and that’s only what’s been reported. Occupy ICE TPA demand the immediate instatement of the Prison Rape Elimination Standards, the immediate investigation into all reports of assault and sexual violence in ICE holding facilities, and an end to all information sharing between local law enforcement and the rogue terrorist operation known as ICE.

Most importantly, Occupy ICE TPA demand the full abolition of ICE itself and seek the eviction by landlord Chuck Prather of the DHS in Tampa. The 3.6 billion dollars spent in 2016 to cage families could have fed the entirety of the US houseless population in the same year. Occupy ICE TPA commits to shut down this facility as a meaningful disruption to its illegitimate operations. This is a call to action to sympathetic people and organizations to oppose the dehumanization of oppressed peoples and to move in solidarity with all struggles for liberation.