Civil Rights
A father who had just put his two children on a school bus was arrested last week by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents near Portland, officials said.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, has proposed legislation that would limit ICE enforcement actions at locations deemed sensitive, such as school buses and school bus stops.
"Targeting arrests where children gather is deeply concerning and does not make our communities safer," Bonamici told the Tribune. "It only terrifies kids who must now worry about their parents instead of focusing on school."
School officials in Tigard-Tualatin School District say they're reaching out to legislators after the father of two students was arrested by federal immigration agents at a school bus stop last week.
U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), is already working to get legislation passed. HR 1011, the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, proposes to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to limit immigration enforcement actions at sensitive locations, including school buses and school bus stops when children are present.
U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici has pledged her support for immigrants and asylum seekers, who have been political targets of Donald Trump during the three years of his presidency.
Bonamici made her comments Friday, Jan. 31, at a meeting with immigrant advocates and public officials at Virginia Garcia's Beaverton Wellness Clinic. Two weeks earlier, the Oregon Democrat was part of a congressional delegation that visited Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, for a firsthand look at Trump's policy of requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are being considered.
U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon's 1st congressional district representative, which includes Columbia County, travels to Texas, Mexico to observe effect of Trump administration policies.
A sold-out crowd packed the Oregon Convention Center for the 34th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, held by The Skanner Foundation on the King holiday, Monday, Jan. 20.
A delegation of congressional leaders followed U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, into Matamoros to witness conditions in the camp of asylum seekers just past the Gateway International Bridge on Friday.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, called the conditions in Matamoros "heinous human rights abuses". Another representative, Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, told reporters that she spoke to a woman from El Salvador whose sick baby was lying on the floor of a tent.
Calling it "inhumane," "morally unjust," "heinous," "disgraceful," a "travesty," "horrific" and "heartbreaking," 17 Democratic members of Congress described with great emotion the "disregard for our fellow brothers and sisters" they say they saw on Friday morning as they toured a squalid migrant refugee camp across from Brownsville, Texas.
One-by-one, members of a congressional delegation described the squalid conditions faced by the asylum-seeking families and children they met in Matamoros, Mexico, where the U.S. has returned thousands of migrants, requiring them to wait for their U.S. immigration court hearings on the Mexican side of the border.