Undocumented Los Angeles gang member Pedro Espinoza allegedly killed a young African American, Jamiel Shaw Jr., on March 2. The right wing is now trying to turn Shaw’s tragic murder into cannon fodder for their repression of immigrants.
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On April 8, Jamiel Shaw Sr. and his wife, Anita, confronted the Los Angeles City Council asking for reform in the Los Angeles Police Department’s policy as it pertains to immigration law enforcement. Currently, the LAPD functions under Special Order 40, which prevents the LAPD from inquiring about the legal status of anyone not convicted of a crime.
The proposed changes would allow for cops to hand over undocumented immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they are targeted as a member of a gang and suspected of a crime. Standing next to an alleged gang member and wearing baggy clothes is currently enough for the LAPD to register youth into a gang member database.
The application of such a reform would be tantamount to racial profiling. It is part of a growing movement to repress and exploit undocumented workers even further.
At the city council meeting, the Shaw family wore T-shirts featuring a website that promotes what they call “Jamiel’s Law.” Their website links to the site of a vehemently anti-immigrant candidate running for mayor of Los Angeles, Walter Moore.
While Moore is looking to cash in on the slaying of Jamiel Jr., “Special Order 40” has come under attack before.
The right-wing government watchdog Judicial Watch has sued the city over the matter. According to the Los Angeles Times, Sterling Norris, a Judicial Watch attorney, said, “Police aren’t taking the next step, which is when they pull somebody over to immediately check into whether they are illegal through a thorough background check and through their investigation at the scene.”
“Special Order 40 essentially told them to shut up and not to talk about illegal immigrants,” added Norris.
Judicial Watch seeks to remove Special Order 40 in its totality. It seeks to turn the hue of someone’s skin into a barometer for guessing their legal status. The organization has recently claimed to form the Capital Area Alliance Against Illegal Immigration, made up of 10 anti-immigrant groups in the Washington, D.C., area.
While most of these kinds of organizations remain relatively small in numbers, they nevertheless garner support from bourgeois politicians across the nation.
In Costa Mesa, Calif., local law enforcement is already being trained by ICE agents in immigration law enforcement. Costa Mesa mayor Allan Mansoor is an honorary member of the Minutemen Project. He was presented the membership by Barbara Coe, a staunch racist who has commonly referred to Mexicans as “savages” and is an admitted member of the Council of Conservative Citizens—a white-supremacist splinter group of the pro-segregation White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s.
In the case of “Special Order 40,” Councilman Dennis Zine has put forth a motion that would change the current policy. Zine states, “We can now take it one step further and say that if an individual is a known gang member and an illegal immigrant, that the LAPD has the responsibility and duty to turn the individual over to federal immigration officials.” Zine’s motion even drops mention of the need to be suspected of a crime to be a candidate for investigation.
The Police Protective League—the LAPD’s false union—has also lent its support to Zine’s motion.
We must fight against the latest efforts to repress and exploit the undocumented community. Jail facilities are already being screened for undocumented workers thrown into the prison system. Instead of jobs, housing and an education, capitalism provides Black and Latino youth with prisons, deportation and poverty.
We must fight the right wing’s attempt to turn the murder of Jamiel Shaw Jr. into a club against immigrants. The economic and social ills of our communities will be aggravated, not solved, by further repression. The intent of the state apparatus in criminalizing Black and Latino youth is to control a population whose needs it fails to meet.
In San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities throughout the country, the Party for Socialism and Liberation will be participating in mass demonstrations on May 1 calling for amnesty for all undocumented workers. Progressives and revolutionaries must join our immigrant sisters and brothers in calling for full rights for all immigrants and working-class unity against the capitalist system that exploits us all!
