60 Washington organizations call for protections for immigrants, decry federal overreach

It was gut-wrenching for Ami Manning to watch as her 23-year-old son, Holden, was grabbed by the hair, shoved to the ground and arrested by law enforcement on June 11 during a Spokane protest over immigration enforcement .

“It was meant to send a message, to scare us, to silence us, to make us believe that standing up for our neighbors is too dangerous,” Manning said. “We have to continue to show up for each other. Silence will not serve us, but now more than ever, we need to be vocal, visible and continue together to resist these fascist government assaults on our community.”

Manning gave her account of what happened that day to a group of about 40 people assembled underneath a shelter at the Ice Age Floods Playground in Riverfront Park on Wednesday to condemn federal overreach and demand change.

Many federal leaders say they are making the United States safer by carrying out the will of the people who voted for President Donald Trump, who made mass deportation a pillar of his campaign. Federal prosecutors in Spokane have alleged that some protesters went over the line of free speech.

“We respect and honor everyone’s right to peacefully protest,” said Stephanie Van Marter, who was serving as the acting U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington when federal charges were filed in July against nine of the Spokane protesters, in a news release. “However, the few who choose to cross the line from protest to violence and destruction will be held accountable.”

Sixty organizations and 1,000 members of the community signed on to seven demands that call for the safety and rights of immigrant families and advocates. They include, requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to identify themselves, requiring federal agents to provide proof of warrants before arrests, and having the City of Spokane conduct regular Freedom of Information Act requests to learn who ICE is detaining in Spokane and why.

Among the groups backing the effort are Fuse Washington, Latinos En Spokane, Manzanita House, Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane, Spokane Community Against Racism, NAACP, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Greater Washington and North Idaho and the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane.

With the election of Trump, a slew of arrests and detainments have occurred across the country in an attempt to carry out Trump’s promise of the largest mass deportation in U.S. history.

Other demands the press conference laid out included creating a community fund of at least $500,000 to use as emergency aid for immigrant communities. In addition, they want the Washington Legislature to pass a bill that would help enforce the Keep Washington Working Act by requiring the state Attorney General’s office to investigate practices and patterns of misconduct by law enforcement. The Keep Washington Working Act is a 2019 law that limits local government and state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

The June 11 protest Manning described was spurred by the detainment of two immigrants, 21-year-old Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez and 28-year-old Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres, who came to the United States legally after fleeing from persecution in Venezuela.

Ami and Holden Manning were two of the more than 30 protesters arrested that day and held overnight. Three days later, on June 14, nine protesters, including former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart , were arrested by U.S. Marshals and charged with crimes against immigration authorities. As part of the community solutions outlined during Wednesday’s press conference, people like Ami Manning called for the federal charges against those nine individuals to be dropped.

Ami Manning said Spokane police officers gave conflicting directions during the June 11 protest: Some ordered the mass of protesters to enter the street, while others cried for them to stay out of the street.

“That day, we gathered in peace,” Ami Manning said at the news conference. “We even sang Happy Birthday to Cesar, one of the detained, on his 21st birthday. But what met us was not justice, it was fear. It was force. It was brutality; 185 officers were deployed against a peaceful protest… That day our protest was brutalized. Our constitutional right to assembly and free speech was decimated.”

Ami Manning described how her son, who was at the front of the crowd, nudged into a member of law enforcement by accident because of the crowd bustling behind him. Ami Manning then explained how another officer, not the one who was nudged into, grabbed Holden Manning by the hair and slammed him into the ground. Ami Manning was handcuffed at this point and could only watch as her son was detained. While handcuffed, she said she watched as another young person had their hair yanked by a deputy from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

Holden and Ami Manning were also charged with failure to disperse, although those charges were later dropped.

“Let me be absolutely clear: There was no violence until law enforcement created it,” Ami Manning said.

Van Marter’s press release from July said some protesters “blocked the driveway and/or pushed against officers, despite orders to disperse and attempts to remove the defendants from the property.” The release also said one protester “struck a federal officer from behind as the officer was attempting to clear a path for transport vehicles to leave the building.” Some of the accused “then placed trash cans, sand/cement bags, benches, signs, and other objects in front of doors and exits to block the exit of federal officers and detainees from the federal facility,” the news release outlining federal charges said.

Pastor Emily Kuenker, ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America about five years ago, also spoke at Wednesday’s event. Kuenker said changes to immigration policy and the militarization of law enforcement is not about making cities like Spokane safer, it’s about enacting a racist ideology.

“We will continue to show up,” Kuenker said. “We will continue to love our neighbors, knowing that love is not sedentary but active. It is not a stone. It is our daily bread, which must continually be made and remade. And always we say that Spokane is a city where everyone belongs.”