“The arrests constitute one of the largest immigration enforcement actions in state history, according to Northwest Immigrant Rights Project director Jorge Baron, outstripping a 2009 raid on a factory in Bellingham that netted 28 undocumented workers. In response, the people of Ellensburg have banded together in support of the local Hispanic population and denounced the aggressive law-enforcement tactics, measures that seem especially unwarranted given the community’s lingering suspicion that ICE either misidentified or failed to apprehend the ringleader of the forging operation who was their stated target.” Read this week’s feature story on Ellensburg’s immigration issue in its entirety.Photos by Keegan Hamilton.Published on March 16, 2011
A trailer park on West University Way in Ellensburg was the site of one of the largest immigration raids in state history, with 30 people either arrested or detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
People who accept food from the APOYO food bank are asked to provide info about where they live now, the city and country they came from, and the number of people in their family.
A diverse group of protestors make their way through downtown Ellensburg.
APOYO founder Phillip Garrison is a retired English professor at Central Washington University. He participated in a study abroad program in the Mexican state of MichoacA¡n for many years. Now he speaks fluent Spanish, and is reverently addressed as aEœDon FelipeaE by the people he serves at the food bank.
Protestors from across the state, including members of the New Sanctuary Movement, came to Ellensburg to protest ICEaE™s enforcement action.
Mark Holloway is the co-owner of D&M Coffee in Ellensburg, and the co-director of the Ellensburg Coalition for Humanity, a community organization that has raised more than $20,000 to pay for bail, rent, utilities and food for families affected by the ICE operation on January 20.
Leaders of the Ellensburg Coalition for Humanity were appalled that ICE detained a pregnant woman, a nursing mother and, in several instances, both parents in families with multiple young children.
A member of the Kittitas County CattlemenaE™s Association helps a member of EllensburgaE™s Hispanic community carry a box of food to her car.
The Pentecostal church established by Gilberto Barrientos-Ariza, a pastor detained by ICE and charged with illegally re-entering the country after being deported.
Julia Karns serves up hot chocolate during the protest, held on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon.
During a protest on February 26 in downtown Ellensburg, Mark Holloway helps light a candle.
Ricardo Gonzalez is a member of the National Honor Society at Ellensburg High School. His mother Angelica is charged with using an unlawfully issued immigration document, and ICE detained his father, Ramon, who worked at a plant nursery, on suspicion of entering the country illegally.
APOYO founder Phillip Garrison chats with a couple from Royal City, Washington.
About 75 people came to get food from APOYO on a recent Saturday, many of them driving 40 minutes from Mattawa, Washington.
Volunteers distribute food to the needy among EllensburgaE™s Hispanic population at the APOYO food bank on the campus of Central Washington University.
Tomasa, an immigrant from Nayarit, Mexico accepting beef from a Kittitas County cattleman.
