By Yael Webber

I was one of eight people arrested while protesting Essex County's cooperation with ICE and complicity in our nation's shameful, bigoted and inhumane treatment of immigrants.

Specifically, we protested on June 29 to demand that Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo end his contract with ICE to house 800 detainees in the Essex County Correctional Facility.



We are horrified by the cruelty against immigrants -- many of whom have come to legally seek asylum -- shown by ICE and the Trump administration.

It took viral images and stories toddlers being forcibly separated from their families for us, as a nation, to take notice. This is the time to act. Perhaps you are outraged and disgusted, but it all seems rather far away. It's not. We are detaining immigrants here in New Jersey, and profiting handsomely off of abusive and frankly immoral detention centers.



"Abolish ICE" may sound extreme or radical. It is not. It is simply necessary.



For me, the fight for immigrant rights is deeply personal. Jews have always been immigrants. My mother was born in Casablanca in 1957. It was not a good time to be Jewish in Morocco, and approximately 90 percent of the Jewish population left over the course of a couple of decades.

When she was 7 years old, my mother's parents packed their five children and an aunt into the back seat of their car in the middle of the night, drove to France, and never returned. Other relatives fled to Israel, to Canada and to Los Angeles. Just like the immigrants at our southern border today, they wanted nothing more than an opportunity for a better, safer life for their children.



Let's not forget that immigrant communities have been on the front lines of this fight for years. The violence and racism of the Trump administration have forced us to confront our xenophobic immigration policies, but detention and deportation are not new. Family detention centers are not new.



Don't think for a minute that replacing family separations at the border with indefinite family detention is just or reasonable. Were you appalled that traumatized children were being torn from the arms of loving parents and sent hundreds of miles away to be warehoused in "tender age" shelters? You should also be appalled that the administration's "solution" to this manufactured problem is to indefinitely jail entire families whose only "crime" was seeking to escape deadly violence or extreme poverty. This is being done in your name and on your dime.



Let's not forget that crossing the border without documentation is not a crime. There is no reason that undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers cannot be released together with their families to await a hearing.

The tide is changing. The Occupy ICE movement is gaining traction all across the country. Hundreds of people, including a number of elected officials, attended a recent protest at the privately run detention center in Elizabeth.

Let's not be silent about the detention center run by Essex County Democrats -- in Newark, supposedly a sanctuary city. Most residents are unaware that Essex County earns about $117 per person per day from detaining immigrants in our county jail. DiVincenzo, whose signature is on the contract with ICE and who can choose to give notice of ending the contract at any time, is up for re-election in November.



Our elected officials need to hear the voices of their constituents raised in opposition to ICE.



Let's not forget that abolishing chattel slavery was extreme and radical not that long ago. So was allowing women to vote. And demanding civil rights for black Americans.



The Trump administration's goal is not to make us safer. Immigrants (both documented and undocumented) are actually less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. We are deporting workers, taxpayers, breadwinners, parents of citizens, and even veterans -- not just gang members or hardened criminals. The goal is to demonize and dehumanize a group of people who are a convenient scapegoat for the very real problems facing our nation.

Let's not forget what happens when a group of people is singled out, blamed for a nation's social and economic troubles, referred to as "animals", denied basic rights, and forced into detention camps.

As a Jew and the daughter of an immigrant, I know how this story ends. This is never the right side of history to be on.

This is happening now. This is "Never Again."

Yael Webber is a Montclair resident and early intervention provider. She is passionate about equal rights for all people.

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