Can #BlackLivesMatter exist without #AbolishICE?: A look at the need for inclusion of Black immigrants in the fight for racial justice.

It was in February of 2012 that the shooting and death of an unarmed black teenager in Stanford, Florida  forced all of us to ask the question: “What does it mean to be Black in America?” It was from this simple but loaded question that the #BlackLivesMatter Movement was born – it has evolved from the fight for Justice for Trayvon Martin[i] to a full-blown movement for racial justice.

The #BlackLivesMatter Movement has forced us to recognize, analyze, and address the racial inequities in this country. In particular, it tells us that there is one thing that holds true in this country – Being Black in America comes with its own set of systemic violence.

Whether it is through the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, or police violence; state-sponsored violence against black people in the United States is well-documented and  has been at the center of many heated debates since 2012. What seems to be absent from the conversation about racial justice, though, is all of the ways in which this already anti-Black system collides with a racist immigration system to create a nightmare for Black immigrants.

In order to reach the that conclusion, Black immigrant’s stories must be centered in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we must answer a very simple question: “What happens to black people who are oppressed by the police; oppressed by the criminal justice system; and oppressed by the school system, when these Black people are undocumented?” Any person who knows how the immigration system works in the United States of America, would say within seconds – they end up in  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

In 2014, The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (“BAJI”) in collaboration with NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, published a report on the “State of Black Immigrants”. In the second part of the report, they address the issue of the criminalization of Black immigrants. Their findings, though unsettling, are not shocking to folks who have been working with Black immigrants. They found that

• More than one out of every five noncitizens facing deportation on criminal grounds before the Executive Office for Immigration Review is Black”

• Black immigrants are more likely to be detained for criminal convictions than the immigrant population overall.

• Black immigrants in removal proceedings for a criminal conviction often have lived in the U.S. for a long time and established strong community ties; many are apprehended and placed in deportation proceedings long after the triggering criminal conviction occurred.

• Black immigrants are much more likely than nationals from other regions to be deported due to a criminal conviction.[ii]

These disheartening statistics are  reflective of the system that we live in. One can think of it this way – an undocumented young Black man. Terry[iii],  is racially profiled by the police. He is searched then arrested for possession of marijuana (a charge that in the state of Florida can be resolved through a citation). But, being that a Black man was caught with the marijuana, he most certainly will suffer the harshest punishment. He arrives in county jail where he reaches out to his family who is already burdened with underemployment, wage disparities, lack of immigration status themselves, and therefore, they cannot help him with bail. His only option – a plea.

What he does not know is that a plea for simple possession of marijuana will in fact take him out of county jail, and straight into immigration custody. He does not know immigration law and his public defender does not either. So, he takes the plea hoping to go home. The state offers the best plea possible- you plead guilty and you get time served. After court, he goes home (or so he thinks).

Except that, while he is being processed for release, the jail alerts ICE and he is placed in immigration custody. There, no pleas will be offered. He will need to prove he qualifies for some sort of waiver to be released. Sadly, many do not qualify for a waiver. So, this act of racial profiling by the police officer and the inequities of the criminal justice system will result in his deportation to a country he has not lived in for years.[iv]

This story is that of hundreds, if not thousands, of young Black immigrants. Their Blackness lands them in the criminal justice system, and their immigrant status lands them at Krome.[v] The unforgiving nature of the immigration system is one that immigrant rights advocates have been fighting for years.  This young man’s likely unconstitutional stop by the police, should not carry such a heavy consequence.

The issue with the #BlackLivesMatter movement not centering the stories of Black Immigrants is that stories like that of Terry do not get heard. When the movement asks for a solution to the mass incarceration problem, they ask for things like: “less prison time, plea deals, and withholding of adjudication”, things that get people out of jail but not out of deportation.

A movement for racial justice needs to be inclusive of all Black people. A movement for racial justice that fails to include Black immigrants is a failure in and of itself. There is no path of racial justice that can or should exclude Black immigrants.

Second chances do not exist in the immigration system, so while black Americans get to only carry the burden of racism and non-Black immigrants the burden of xenophobia; Black immigrants, who exist at the intersection of both – are crushed by both.

A movement for Black lives cannot be exclusionary of the Black lives of immigrants. A movement for Black lives that focuses on decarceration must always ask the question: When a Black immigrant gets out of county jail, what happens next?  Because for many Black immigrants what happens after they get out of county jail is far worse.
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[i] Read more about the Trayvon Martin killing here-  https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/florida-teen-trayvon-martin-is-shot-and-killed

[ii] Juliana Morgan-Trostle, Kexin Zheng & Carl Lipscombe, The State of Black Immigrants: part II: Black Immigrants in the Mass Criminalization System, Page 5 (2014), http://stateofblackimmigrants.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/sobi-fullreport-jan22.pdf.

[iii] Terry is a fictitious name. Any resemblance to a real life story is  coincidental.

[iv] Jeremy Raff, The ‘Double Punishment’ for Black Undocumented Immigrants, the atlantic, December 30, 2017 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-double-punishment-for-black-immigrants/549425/

[v] Krome is an ICE operated detention facility in Miami, FL. It is a male-only facility that mostly house men with criminal convictions.