The Keep Families Together Rally in Louisville today had about 500 people which was less than I hoped, but showed more concern than I feared in the state of Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, and Matt Bevin. We marched from the main Federal Building 2 ½ city blocks to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in KY. Tons of speakers. I learned that even asylum seekers who came through the legal checkpoints have to check in with ICE once a month (and if they live far away in Eastern KY, tough!) , in person, while waiting on whether they will be granted asylum or not. Miss a meeting and you are automatically considered an undocumented immigrant and a target for arrest.
Immigrants, documented and otherwise, have it worse in rural KY than in Louisville. This is a pretty diverse city. It has about 25% African-American (compared to 13% in the state as a whole, 90% of which are in 3 counties), about 15% and growing of Latinx, enough of a Muslim population to support 2 mosques, a large Jewish population (dating to the 19th C), etc. But most of KY is as white as Idaho (minus the Native Americans in Idaho). And KY, along with OH, has been a major place for asylum seekers and refugees to be located by the govt. since the ‘90s (before Drumpf tried just detaining them all), starting with refugees from Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. So, even before the current Drumpf-made crisis on the U.S. Southern border, refugees and asylum seekers in rural KY were subject to much small town racism—and now that racism has been weaponized by the Fascist-in-Chief.
Speakers and the crowd gave our Democratic mayor, Fischer, hell for refusing to declare Louisville a sanctuary city. But the Metro City Council was given props for passing a law that stopped the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) from “assisting” ICE in doing their dirty work.
Many speakers let the crowd know that the dirty wars that Reagan waged in Central America in the ‘80s created the violence that people are fleeing from now. So, we in the U.S. have made people in Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Guatemala unsafe and now we are closing off their refuge when they flee the violence we created. It’s a no win situation.
Several speakers connected the struggles of the immigrant community(ies) to the struggle of Black Lives Matter. We who are white (or others who have relative positions of privilege and power) were urged to use our power and privilege on behalf of those who are marginalized.
Some history lessons were rehearsed. We were reminded that in the 19th C. Louisville was about 55% German immigrants—then a discriminated against minority. Irish immigrants also found a major home here. (My own family has both Irish and German roots). This city has been heavily Catholic since the 19th C—when this nation was still “Protestant America.” And, as mentioned above, the Jewish community has a long history in this city—unlike much of the South. These historical reminders are important and help people who are horrified by the separation of families at the border connect deeper with the struggle of immigrants, documented and otherwise, whether they come here for economic reasons or fleeing violence.
So, this is a brief report from one of the many rallies, today.