In response to several hundred detentions in the Bay Area conducted by federal immigration officials--immigrant mothers, their children and immigrant rights advocates came out Feb. 28 as part of a Week of Action Against ICE Raids and for Immigrant Rights. “We are Families!” carried the theme of family reunification on Wednesday.

Each day this week in front of the Homeland Security building in downtown San Francisco, the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition and Deporten a la Migra Coalition are denouncing the sharp increase in raids nationwide and locally since January 2007--particularly the devastating effects it has had on our families. There have been countless reports of trauma inflicted children, separated families, and community members too afraid to leave their homes.

Together we are calling on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop their national operation and to urge San Francisco’s Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to call for a moratorium on all ICE raids until congress is able to bring relief through a new and just immigration law which must include legalization.

Activities carried out by ICE have come to leave countless US citizen children parentless and contradict all congressional efforts to create a new immigration law – recognizing that our current immigration system is broken and impracticable - to ensure among other things family unity.