In this multimedia SUB/URBAN REVIEW series, we look at ICE, Acosta’s role, and how effective solidarity challenges hegemony.
Illinois was the first state to ban private prison contracts for immigration detainees.
Some history— The September 11 terrorist attacks allowed an overreach and a violation of civil rights under the guise of reorganization for safety. President Bush created Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and it was housed within the Department of Homeland Security. It was created by combining parts of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the U.S. Customs Service.
Its alleged focus was interior immigration enforcement, investigating illegal movement of people and goods, and protecting national security.
So in 2003, ICE began slowly gearing up its reign of terror on racialized immigrants. For people who had not gone through the immigration process in the latter half of the 20th century, it was still out of view.
In McHenry County, this was no different. The county began a contract in April 2003, and the Great Recession of 2007-2008 later made this private prison contract very attractive, in material ways and as a tool to oppress members of the working class.
But from the beginning, community members from all walks of life, including former detainees, faith community leaders, and social justice activists, stated it was wrong to profit from detaining people for reasons as random as a paperwork error owing to a government error or a traffic ticket.
In 2019, after a decade of attempting to amplify this situation, the abolition of prison movement and the COVID-19 pandemic brought the larger public’s attention to what was going on in McHenry County.
Coalition to Cancel the ICE Contract in McHenry County was a substantial and critical part of this amplification, but like always, activists need politicians with the courage to support actions. Liberation of the working class has never been obtained using only one path.
McHenry County Board member Carlos Acosta, elected in 2018, questioned the partnership’s financial and moral motives, introducing resolutions and working alongside the grassroots group Coalition to Cancel the ICE Contract. That effort ended with the signing of the Illinois Way Forward Act, which prohibits local law enforcement and county jails from entering into contracts with private agencies to house people under immigration detention.
And as quickly as Acosta moved to stand up, hegemony also moved to shut him down.
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