In the early hours of Sunday, September 20, an ICE squad operating in Grand Rapids, Michigan harassed a 36-year-old Guatemalan driver, Mario David Coronado Juárez, and caused him to die by car crash. Coronado, a construction worker, was on his way to work as a drywaller when ICE agents attempted to pull over his car.
Coronado had lived and worked in Grand Rapids for seven years. He was sending money to his wife in Guatemala, who is raising their three children. They hoped to save enough money for Mario to build them a home someday in Guatemala — after pouring his labor into numerous homes in Michigan.
Undocumented immigrants do a majority of the drywall work in the United States, one clear way the world’s foremost imperialist state uses and abuses “foreign” workers inside its own borders.
Coronado rationally feared, when an unmarked ICE car tried to pull him over, that agents would kidnap him, throw him in jail indefinitely, and transport him against his will back to Guatemala, or even to an unknown third country — as the U.S. government has been doing for over a year.
Fearing assault, death, or the loss of his family’s income, he attempted to flee at high speed. Tragically, his vehicle crashed into a tree and caught fire, killing him.
DHS told NBC News that the ICE squad involved was searching for a different Guatemalan immigrant in order to deport him based on DUI charges, and agents sought to pull Coronado over based on his license plate. ICE routinely arrests and deports immigrants they encounter at random while officially sweeping for other individuals. They go after anyone who is or they think may be in the U.S. without legal permission, or anyone who gets in their way.
DHS claims the ICE agents did not initiate a high-speed chase by pursuing when Coronado fled and that they sought to help him when his car caught fire. There is no confirmation of these claims.
ICE does not allege that Coronado broke any traffic laws before the attempted stop. They have not shown any type of warrant.
Four days later, several hundred people attended a protest vigil led by Movimiento Cosecha. Karla Barbieri, who knew Coronado, spoke out, “Why did he flee? When you live under those conditions, you will flee because you have to grasp until the last second to try to have your family live with dignity.”
Coronado’s death is part of a wider injustice. He worked seven days a week in order to send as much money to his family as possible, because of the real risk of being deported at any moment. He was living in poverty, sharing a room with two other people. His family in Guatemala lived in a corrugated tin shack.
Like Coronado, Barbieri is an Indigenous immigrant from Guatemala. She shared her deep outrage with mourners: “The Mayan Indians are also human. We have a soul, we have spirit, we have feelings. We’re human; we’re not disposable.”
How tired was this man, driving to work with his tools at 7 a.m. on a Sunday when ICE tried to drag him out of this country?
Democrats Don’t Fight ICE or the Far Right
Democratic governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer has said she is ordering the State Police to investigate this ICE traffic stop. Democratic Grand Rapids area U.S. House member Hillary Scholten called for ICE to explain its reasons for the stop and whether they carried out a high-speed chase. A Democratic state legislator, Stephen Wooden, called for ICE to be replaced with a less arbitrary immigration police force under the Department of Justice rather than Homeland Security. Progressive Detroit area U.S. House member Rashida Tlaib made a statement that correctly holds ICE responsible for causing Coronado’s death and says, “These killings have to stop.”
Democrats say ad nauseum every election cycle that they are going to fight Trump. Every time ICE uses force in a “blue” city or state, they have a chance to do so. But instead they support the continued operation of ICE. Immigrants and their supporters get handwringing words.
When ICE agents murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey shouted on television for ICE to leave the city. But he did exactly zero to make that happen.
In Grand Rapids, too, Democratic officials are doing nothing. After the death of Mario Coronado, a group of protesters filled the next meeting of the Grand Rapids City Commission wearing “Abolish ICE” shirts and made two hours of public comments denouncing the ICE attack that caused Coronado’s death.
One retired teacher who called for immediate action against ICE in the city asked, “Why does it feel like you’re not on the same side as us?”
But Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand enforced the three-minute public comment time limit and cut off one of the protesters. The group began chanting “Justice for Mario” and accused the mayor of covering up city police cooperation with ICE. LaGrand declared the meeting in recess so that security could “restore order.”
The Democratic Party says that it will fight Trump and the Far Right. But Democrats run the executive branch of government in the city of Grand Rapids and the State of Michigan, just as they do in Minneapolis, and in other cities that have faced Trump’s immigration crackdown.
They actually refuse to stop ICE from making traffic stops, making arrests, moving in unmarked cars, raiding businesses, public places, and homes, and on and on. With hollow words they support immigrant rights. In action they consider ICE activity business as usual and part of their own system.
The people ICE is kidnapping deserve freedom, equality, and full rights. For revolutionary socialists, it doesn’t matter where another person was born — the working class is international. It’s not a crime to be Guatemalan. It’s not a crime to be from any country. The U.S. government has no right to say yes or no to people who migrate in search of opportunities.
If the Left relies on the Democratic Party to tame ICE, then we will be reduced to begging. When that begging doesn’t work, we will have to continue and continue with that same begging because we will have neglected to build any dependable power of our own.
The working class needs political independence to stand with our immigrant siblings with actions, not words, using our full force, including our unions, to demand justice for Mario Coronado and victims of ICE, and an end to the anti-immigrant offensive.
The post ICE Kills Immigrant Construction Worker Mario David Coronado Juárez in Michigan appeared first on Left Voice.
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