For Immediate Release
May 20, 2015
Contact: Daniel Barrera, dbarrera@organizetexas.org
SG Sarmiento, sgsarmiento@ndlon.org
While Sheriff Valdez Hosts ICE Director, Community Demands “ICE Out Of Dallas”
Groups to hold press conference before County Sheriff Hosts ICE Director in Dallas
WHAT: Press conference by community groups demanding ICE Out of Dallas
WHEN: Today, Wednesday, 4:00PM (one hour prior to ICE event in Dallas)
WHERE: El Centro College West Campus, 3330 N. Hampton, Dallas, TX 75212
WHO: Dallas immigrant and civil rights leaders and families, Texas Organizing Project (TOP), North Texas Dream Team (affiliate of United We Dream), Pueblo Sin Fronteras (affiliate of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, NDLON), En Pie De Lucha, Dallas AFL-CIO, Mi Familia Vota, Proyecto Inmigrante, Arlington Proyecto Unido/Unity Project, Workers Defense Project, Iron-Workers Union, Workers United, LULAC
DALLAS, Texas—Members of the North Texas Immigration Coalition will host a press conference prior to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) event with Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and Agency Director Sarah Saldaña. Under the banner of “ICE Out Of Dallas”, immigrant and civil rights groups are demanding that Dallas officials reject voluntary federal programs that entangle local law enforcement with ICE, saying these programs undermine community policing, public safety, and fundamental civil rights.
Dallas organizations – including TOP, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and North Texas Dream Team – have been vocal calling on Sheriff Valdez to come clean about its entanglement with federal immigration enforcement through a new iteration of the failed Se Communities deportation program, called Priority Enforcement Program, or “PEP”.
“From Los Angeles to Boston, and today in Dallas, immigrant communities are demanding answers from their local officials and rejecting the new iteration of the failed S-COMM dragnet,” said Pablo Alvarado, Executive Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). “The PEP deportation program is long on criminalizing, poll-tested messaging, like ‘felons, not families’ but it’s short on details.”
Despite a November 20th Department of Homeland Security memorandum announcing the end of Se Communities, groups across the country have raised concerns that PEP maintains the same funneling of information from local law enforcement to ICE.
To date, the Dallas Sheriff has refused to meet with community groups.
For more information about efforts to uncover the truth about PEP, Click Here
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