Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez's home on the southwest side of Chicago just weeks after the father of three was shot and left partially paralyzed while leaving a restaurant. During the raid, agents slammed him to the floor and cuffed his hands behind his back, aggravating the injuries that he had suffered to his head and shoulder.
ICE didn't have a warrant for Catalan-Ramirez, but instead targeted him because the Chicago Police Department had identified him as a gang member in its citywide database. After Catalan-Ramirez sued, the Chicago Police Department admitted in a letter to the immigration judge overseeing his deportation case that they didn't have much evidence to link Catalan-Ramirez to a gang. And yet, despite a growing outcrythat is demanding law enforcement agencies re-examine how they use gang databases, the Chicago Police Department hasn't offered to take on the policies and practices that unfairly landed Catalan-Ramirez on their list.
While many in law enforcement hail gang databases as a policing breakthrough, civil rights lawyers have attacked these programs since their conception. Weariness over these programs has only grown since the Trump administration began stepping up efforts to deport gang members. Reformers argue these databases function like black boxes and demand more information be made public about how someone gets on—or off—these lists. The lists' opaqueness, they say, make them a prime tool for racial profiling. From what limited information advocates have been able to gather, a familiar pattern has emerged around the country: Black and Latino communities constitute a disproportionate number of individuals on gang lists.
[For more on this story by EMMANUEL FELTON, go to https://psmag.com/social-justi...d-latino-communities]
Comments (0)