Building+Bridges+2011-10-20

October 20, 2011 Fieldwork Day: visit to ICE! A security guard met us at the door, with a walkie-talkie clearly talking about us. He directed us to a different door where we had to go through a metal detector; I put myself at the end of the line so when the guard demanded students' IDs I felt a little helpless. Eventually Sylvia, the officer we were to meet, came down and got us in by assuring the guard we'd be under her supervision as long as we were in the building. We walked into a room with huge banners. One of them said something along the lines of "ICE: catching dangerous fugitives since 2001." Anyhow, FUGITIVES was really big and scary looking. Sylvia told us about the difference between criminal proceeding and civil proceedings leading up to deportation. They call deportation "removal." Though immigrant advocates had told me the ICE building was currently being used as a detention center (they have vigils every Friday morning at 7:30 there to show support for the detainees being sent to jails), she said no, it was only used for 2 hour holding cells. The students wanted to know more about the detention process. Florin asked about ICE's response to the Cook County Ordinance we had learned about