r/EmergencyManagement • u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 • 2d ago
ICE at disasters
Hey friends,
There’s been some growing concern in my world from shelter managers becoming concerned about the potential for ICE to show up at Hurricane/emergency shelters. There was a Biden administration directive that was supposed to prevent immigration raids etc from occurring during natural disasters. Our local leadership has expressed the idea that this shouldn’t be a problem.
But with yesterday’s arrests of wildland firefighters AT a wildfire in Washington, it appears that nowhere is safe anymore.
Be safe out there and look out for each other and especially those that we serve.
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u/autumngirl11 2d ago
A coworker told me about her mother being detained by ICE after the LA fires earlier this year. She was picked up from the shelters. They were easy targets because all of their documents had burned and most had no proof of identity. It took several weeks before her mother, a naturalized citizen, was released.
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u/SiWeyNoWay 2d ago
JFC and the fucking LOCAL media was silent. 🤬🤬🤬
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u/autumngirl11 2d ago
The local media wasn’t silent. It was broken. Everything had burned to the ground in some places, and there was a lot of confusion and grief. Government buildings had shuttered and people scattered, there was no functioning system in place for validating any of these claims.
There’s a reason there are/were huge protests in California against ICE. CA isn’t radical. It’s rightfully pissed.
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u/awwaygirl 2d ago
ICE just arrested firefighters in Washington state WHILE THEY WERE FIGHTING A FIRE.
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u/Mediocre-Tomato666 2d ago
The wild part is most of the firefighters were from local tribes. As in, not, nor have they EVER BEEN FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, immigrants. This is solely about going after nonwhite people. We need to get honest about that if we want to actually protect each other. You can't fight what you won't see.
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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 2d ago
I’ve heard this from a a few places today. If that’s accurate, that makes an already disgusting incident somehow even more abhorrent.
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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 2d ago edited 2d ago
Oh im aware. Wildland fire is my main job, so I keep a pretty close eye on that world in general.
Absolutely disgusting
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u/Tawnyk 1d ago
WTF is wrong with BLM for inviting this bullshit?
I’m a volunteer FF and EMT with a local department, but also volunteer with a major emergency sheltering agency. Makes me want to throw up the thought of ICE showing up at ANY emergency. Big or small.
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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 1d ago
I think in yesterdays case, it was a California state IMT that let ICE walk all over them.
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u/viciousheeler 1d ago edited 1d ago
It wasn’t BLM inviting this. The IMT that is in charge of the fire is responsible for this asinine situation.
Edit/ did not see original source link. Disappointed that they would use this kind of baiting strategy on a wildland fire…
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u/kiipii 2d ago
Was part of a discussion a few weeks ago about how to create policies around this concern. Do shelters let them in? Hand over registration info? Jurisdictions need to be discussing this now.
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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 2d ago
1000%. As a mass care branch director, I’m here to protect the people seeking shelter. I for one will not stand by and let shelter refugees be dragged out of my shelters as long as I have a say in the matter.
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u/momof3bs 2d ago
Make sure the disaster case managers and a legal are the first ones at those shelters
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u/adoptagreyhound 2d ago
I'm pretty sure those Biden era protections were eliminated in an Executive Order a while back. A few news stories about them showing up at churches and hospitals as well, so nowhere and no one is particularly safe at this point.
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u/Dry_Policy7559 2d ago
EM that allow ICE in to these shelters will be seen as supporting ICE. Out the window will go any trust your office had with immigrants and you’ll be seen as a partisan-affiliated agency.
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u/No-Fail7484 2d ago
Don’t let ice in. Get them gone as an attacker. Toss them away from water and food to avoid contamination. Keep your shelter clean.
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u/Mediocre-Tomato666 2d ago
I live in LA and this is a massive concern here. Following to get updates on what we can do.
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u/No-Fail7484 2d ago
Need to treat them as attackers in emergencies. Let the court sort them out after they are planted out of the way. That way they, ice, know they are nothing to the people. Especially since they are nothing more than proud boys pushing meth and fentanyl at the same time. Don’t need that shit pushed either.
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u/transham 1d ago
While freshly aggravated, this has long been a concern. My very first disaster response was over 20 years ago under FEMA. Another hurricane came through temporarily suspending the operations of my function and red cross shelters reopened. I switched hats and volunteered at one, but was specifically asked to not display any federal clothing or logos (other than leaving disaster assistance fliers at registration) so as not to scare the shelter population...
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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are very right. That reminds me of my first major hurricane experience, back when I was a freshman in high school, probably 2 decades ago now as well. I went to a catholic high school and we collected a bunch of donations to bring out to part of our county that had been hit especially hard by that storm.
We set up at the local church to give out the donations and food etc, but after a few hours, no one had come by, which was weird given that this church was less than a mile from a devastated trailer park that was probably 90+ percent Latino immigrants, and most of those residents were parishioners. We couldn’t figure out why no one was coming by, when the adults in the room realized it was probably because the National Guard was billeting at the church. The people were probably terrified of coming up there at the time.
It was a very formative and eye opening experience for me.
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u/Nghtyhedocpl 1d ago
Apparently disasters don't put ICE in abeyance. They went after a firefighting crew in Washington.
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u/Kreativekitchening 1d ago
Pathological governance in action. Truest reflection of the big orange monkey perv draft dodger felonious fornicating fraudster et al f words
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u/gonzal2020 1d ago
Fire hoses expel water at very potent pressures. Would be unfortunate if one slipped and sprayed in the direction of ICE. Just saying.
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u/LunarMoon2001 1d ago
Assume that this admin and IcE do not care about the law. The law isn’t going to protect you. They aren’t going to stop because there is a standing prohibition against it.
They will show up. If they don’t have a warrant it’s up to you to decide if you want to let them in or not and then battle the consequences.
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u/WhimsicalRenegade 13h ago
Piggybacking to add that in a disaster the undocumented (or, hell, any immigrant these days) may stay in the shadows out of self preservation, but in doing so will also lose out on benefits to which they are entitled. This happened in the northern California fires in 2017. In the days after a massive fire storm as we began to organize resources, the immigrant community would not present for support that they were eligible for. As we realize this, it was terribly disheartening and we found ways to find out into the community with trusted interlocutors, but I always felt badly that even in such a crisis people were afraid to come forward because of being undocumented.
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u/BlahVet21 1d ago
Something to potentially consider as I’m thinking this through on the mass care admin side.
If you haven’t already, develop a strong relationship with your local Red Cross chapter. I know there is a big disparity in involvement regionally but hear me out; The Red Cross is a private corporation so even if your sheltering location is typically a public space, a contract between your locality and Red Cross stating it has been privately established for your event would at least be some kind of authority to prevent unauthorized entry. Also potentially pushing the “reception” centers out to a vehicle checkpoint street side so you don’t have masked bandits snatching people out of line while they wait to check in.
Anyone feel free to chime in if this is a false assumption on my part.
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u/GPDDC Federal 1d ago
FEMA is Homeland Security and ICE is Homeland Security. These decision are up to S1 not us.
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u/NolaApex 2d ago
I hadn’t heard of those arrests but that is negligent to me. Pulling emergency workers from an active scene is inviting animosity and legal action.
Given the current atmosphere we find ourselves in though, how would we stop them? How do you physically stop agents from entering your shelter?