Tampa holds emergency rally to protest ICE shooting in Portland

Tampa, FL – On Friday afternoon, January 9, the Tampa Immigrants’ Rights Committee held a second emergency rally in front of Tampa City Hall in as many days to protest yet another ICE shooting, this time in Portland, Oregon. About 30 people attended the event.

Two Venezuelan immigrants, Luis David Nino-Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, were shot and injured when a Customs and Border Patrol agent fired into the car during a traffic stop. The activists demanded justice for those murdered by ICE and federal agents, as well as getting ICE out of their community.

As part of the demand for ICE to get out of their communities, those gathered demanded that the Tampa city government cancel the 287(g) agreement with ICE that allows Tampa Police Department officers to act as immigration police.

Customs and Border Patrol claimed the agent was acting in “self-defense,” much as they claimed they were acting in self-defense when ICE agent Johnathan Ross murdered observer Renee Good in Minneapolis. That was shown to be a lie by the multiple videos of the event. Federal agents have a long history of making bogus claims of “self-defense,” such as in the case of Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman, who was shot five times by a CBP agent who claimed self-defense, but the prosecutors had to drop the charges against her because they were lies.

The rally featured speakers from Tampa Immigrants Rights Committee, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society. Speakers were united in the demand to arrest and charge killer ICE agent Jonathan Ross and to get ICE off our streets.

Victoria Hinkley, with Tampa Bay SDS, stated: “We must continue to organize, no matter what violence agents show towards us. These racist feds in our communities won’t back down unless we make them and show them that ICE is not welcome in our streets.”

Gia Davila, of FRSO, explained, “These tragic losses of life are just the tip of the iceberg of what ICE has been doing for decades, and what they will continue to do if we do not stand up to demand ICE out of our cities. ICE continues to harass Chicanos and immigrants every day, murdering, racially profiling, harassing, and kidnapping and deporting our brothers and sisters. The capitalists blame and criticize people when it’s their system that’s unlivable.”

The attendees vowed to continue to make Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s life uncomfortable and expose her collaboration with ICE until she cancels the 287(g) agreement with ICE and gets these murderous thugs out of our communities, and to build toward an anti-Trump rally on January 20 to mark one year of his administration.

#TampaFL #ImmigrantRights #ReneeGood #TampaBaySDS #TampaIRC #FRSO