Poll: Most USians Say Trump’s Gone Too Far on Immigration

Some 15 community and faith-based organizations gathered again this week outside the Geo Group ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colo., where longtime Denver resident and activist Jeanette Vizguerra is a prisoner.

Protestors have gathered each week since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Vizguerra during her work break at a Target department store on March 17.

Nate Kassa, who organizes for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, was a safety marshal during the demonstration calling for her release.

“We’re here today to demand freedom for Jeanette Vizguerra,” he explained. “She’s been imprisoned by the Trump administration for exercising her First Amendment right to free speech. And [we’re here] to speak out for the unjust detentions of people like her and other immigrants across this country.”

Vizguerra is a recent recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for her “moral courage and willingness to act on convictions, even at great personal risk.”

ICE officials say Vizguerra is a “convicted criminal alien” for entering and remaining in the U.S. without proper documentation, an act the Trump administration considers illegal. ICE also said she received due process and that a judge issued a final order for her deportation.

Eight in 10 USians, according to a new Marist poll, support deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes. But after seeing masked agents arrest documented student activists and the deployment of active military personnel against peaceful people on U.S. soil, a majority of citizens surveyed say Trump’s gone too far.

Yoselin Corrales, an organizer with the group Aurora Unidos, said it is important to resist what she calls the criminalization of politically active people.

“We’ve seen this across our country with activists being arrested and persecuted by the police and by the FBI, and we will not stand for our voices being silenced,” she said.

DonaldTrump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations, and the budget bill he signed on July 4 includes the largest investment in detention and deportation in U.S. history. The law earmarks $170 billion to fund Trump’s immigration plans, including $45 billion for new detention centers.

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