PHOTOS: Southeast Asian Community Leads Protests Against “ICE Terror”
GoLocalProv News Team and Photographer Richard McCaffrey
PHOTOS: Southeast Asian Community Leads Protests Against “ICE Terror”
Led by members of the Southeast Asian community in Rhode Island, a protest was held on Monday afternoon “to fight back against racist ICE terror and the detention and deportation of Southeast Asian community members.”
The community rally began at Wat Thorikaram Buddhist Temple in Providence.
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“Since Trump's inauguration, we have seen an escalation of racist ICE terror. The detention and deportation of Southeast Asian people here in the U.S. is a continuation of U.S. imperialism in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. We demand an end to the terrorization of our Khmer, Brao, Lao, Hmong, and Vietnamese communities, and will unite and stand up against deportation threats against our children, siblings, parents, and loved ones,” said the organizing groups.
Leading the protest were PrYSM - Providence Youth Student Movement, ARISE - Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education, Cambodian Society of Rhode Island, PSL - Party for Socialism and Liberation, ONA - Olneyville Neighborhood Association, AMOR - Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance
“On the 50th anniversary of the American War in Southeast Asia and the defeat of the U.S. empire, the people of Providence will rally and defend each other. As survivors of genocide and Imperialist war, we recognize the interconnectedness of our struggle with the struggles of the Palestinian, Arab, and Latin American peoples,” said the groups in the announcement.
“We recognize that American capitalists like Donald Trump and Elon Musk engineer violence at home and abroad in order to gorge the U.S. economy on stolen resources and exploited migrant labor. We refuse to be used as pawns in this cruel game,” according to the organizers. “We remain in solidarity with resistance movements against U.S. imperialism everywhere, because we have no need for empire built upon our backs. The Southeast Asian community in Rhode Island has been fighting against our deportation for nearly 25 years, and we will not stop until all of our communities are free.”
