"We Can't Organize Out of Fear": Undocumented Organizer Aly Wane on Resisting ICE

This is why I think, in many ways, the immigration conversation is a racial justice conversation.… I think that it would be a lie to have an analysis of the immigration system that doesn't speak very directly about the influence of race in this country.

Aly Wane at  SOA protest. Photo: Stephen Pa

By Sarah Jaffe, Truthout

March 2, 2017

Today we bring you a conversation with Aly Wane, an undocumented organizer based in Syracuse, New York. Originally born in Senegal, Wane works with a range of groups, including the Syracuse Peace Council, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Undocumented and Black Network and Black Lives Matter Syracuse.

Sarah Jaffe: Everybody is posting this story on Facebook of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taking an immigrant with a brain tumor out of the hospital, and most people are posting this with "That is not normal," "I can't believe this is our new normal." Your response was, "I see ICE is getting back to its old tactics." Can you talk a little bit about what "normal" has been for immigrants?

Aly Wane: I think those of us who have been undocumented organizers for years are struggling with two energies right now. On the one hand, we are so excited to see so many new folks come into organizing spaces, realize what ICE and Border Patrol, with the cooperation of police, have been doing for so many years and really want to fight that. However, so much of this stuff was happening under both Obama and President Bush Jr., and we were not getting the same responses.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39693-we-can-t-organize-out-of-fear-undocumented-organizer-aly-wane-on-resisting-ice