Deportation, Surveillance and Exclusion From the Vote

Rey Wences, co-founder of the Immigrant Youth Justice League and organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportation (OCAD) in Chicago, recounted growing up undocumented in Little Village, the group's 2013 founding, and campaigns against ICE-police collaboration, Chicago's gang database and the "carve-outs" in the city's welcoming-city ordinance. The talk argued that undocumented people are excluded from the electoral process yet shape its terms, and closed with audience questions on child separation, false-document criminalization and health care access. Held online, the fourth talk in the fall 2020 series on the state of our democracy.