ICE at disasters

[u/Smokey_tha_bear9000]

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.

[u/BlahVet21]

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.