To supplement one portion of Susan's amazing post, please check out the following link about the ICE raid on Lee Circle.

Abraham Salcedo worked on the same project as Laureve and me. He and several other Fordham students happened to be driving by Lee Circle as between 20 and 30 workers were lined up against a wall, in flexicuffs, awaiting transport (dozens more had already been taken away). Abraham and his colleagues took down the license plates of all the cars, tried to get the names of all the workers who were being detained (some were too scared to yell out their name), and frantically tried to inform them not to sign anything (often, workers have forms shoved in their faces that will either deport them indefinitely, or for a period of several years).

Immediately after the raid, Hillary Exter, the Director of Public Interest at Fordham, went to the ICE Detention Center and began cutting through the Immigration Offices red tape. Honestly, I was amazed at her efforts.... She was denied access to the prisoners since they would have to get special permission for someone out of state, then the person who could give her the go ahead was out of the office. Also, many workers were not being held at the first location, and she had to travel to several locations! Through her efforts, we found out that ICE had processed many workers rapidly and released almost half because they had valid documentation.

Ignoring the fact that the officers should have asked for documentation before flexicuffing and detaining these workers, I'd like to point out something positive--they were released the same afternoon they were brought in. There is no way that this would have happened even a month ago. Instead, they would most likely have been left in jail at least over the weekend to "teach them a lesson," or, basically, to terrorize other workers. What kind of a message would it send that someone trying to rebuild New Orleans could be detained without due process even with valid documentation?

More importantly, why were they released so quickly? I'll tell you--because people like Hillary are willing to drop everything and spend hours in officials' faces letting them know that they cannot use immigration laws to deprive someone of their inalienable human rights. There's no doubt in my mind that such activism caused ICE to release documented workers as quickly as possible because if they hadn't, immigration policies could not withstand the powerful backlash of the locally based activist community.

I wish I could have described more eloquently everything that Hillary did, and I wish I could have been present for the actions of those before her. As a result of their efforts, ICE and other officials are being held accountable almost immediately for their actions. The result will be greater internal oversight within the organizations, and, ultimately, the reestablishment of justice.