The case I am bringing could not be more important or more timely. The hatred against our immigrants is rampant and it is being expressed in our communities in a military-style, unhindered federal immigration enforcement operation. It is destroying our lives. The new federal budget is likely to provide millions more dollars to address kidnapping and disappearances. It is critical to demand our fair share of rights under the Constitution. This case is about protecting our fundamental freedoms in the midst of an attack by our own government. This attack on our community is widespread and brutal, including the illegal abduction and seizure of community members like this car wash off the streets and then their incarceration in unconstitutional and inhumane detention centers in B18 and other detention centers in California and across the country. They are denied the right to seek legal counsel that is necessary to help keep their families together. I want to thank everyone who has stood with us on this case. It is heartbreaking to see so many individual plaintiffs standing by in this fight. I would like to thank the United Farm Workers, the LA Worker Center Network, and the immigrant offenders. These are heroic organizations that are working day and night to protect the immigrant community. I am so proud to be co-counsel on this urgent case with our friends at the ACLU on Public Counsel. The immigrant advocates at UC Irvine Law School in Southern California and Alan, as well as the private sector, are standing by during this time. I am Hector Fink and Munger, Toll, and Olson. We have worked with them on many past cases that have challenged anti-immigrant policies that violate our rights. For me, the events of June 7th will forever be etched in my mind. Waiting for hours with lawyers in the early hours of the morning, waiting with lawyers with families at B18 with members of Congress, waiting with lawyers to see those who were detained in the raid, only to see federal agents, pushing and shoving the very people we wanted to see in Vance. Well, well, being tear gassed by our own government for demanding our own rights and trying to protect the rights of others is no longer a nightmare but a reality we are living. We will continue to fight for those detained at B18 and elsewhere. We will continue to fight for all those currently held in the infamous Adelanto prison, and we will fight for our constitutional rights and protections under the Bill of Rights so that ICE and all those involved in this brutal immigration enforcement campaign can be forced to continue terrorizing our communities. We will fight for our human dignity. We will assert our deep belief that we are part of this country. We will fight for a fair place in this country because this is our home. This is where our families live.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center is the largest deportation defense firm in Southern California. And that is why we are part of this case. We are here because enough is enough. We are saying that the federal government is denying our clients and the residents of Southern California and across the country. They have the right to counsel. This is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution and the government is not allowing people to understand their rights while they are being held in deplorable conditions and often denied the ability to remain in the country. The federal government is waging a campaign of terror across Southern California. Taking community members off the streets and putting them in warehouses and keeping them away from their loved ones, while denying them access to council. This is clearly unconstitutional. Truly inhumane and a violation of any common decency and you have heard from some of the affected community members here whose relatives are still being held. This is a terror on the rights of our community and Southern California that we are going to see them in court. We will make sure they have to explain their actions before a judicial officer and explain how and why they are violating the Constitution.
