Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20180202

The shadows to admit he clandestinely aided ellsberg in distributing pages of the top secret history of the vietnam war to newspapers across the country. Simplto gos from pubc telephe to pubc teleone, nev usinghe sam one, mong in thboston area, the cambridge area, so that you would not be traced. Amy we will speak to mr. Boston himself, the wellknown historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz. Then to the stateless of the union as President Trump continues his crackdown on the immigrant communities. Immigrants are taking refuge in churches. We go to colorado to speak with sandra lopez, a mother of three u. S. Citizen children, who has taken sanctuary in a carbondale unitarian parsonage to avoid deportation. I was not willing to be arrested because they are a brooding me from my home, my children up rooting me from my children, my home, my future. How am i going to want to go into such a situation . As if nothing were happening. No. I made the valiant decision to go into sanctuary. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President trump said thursday he will not block the release of a secret memo on fbi surveillance drafted by Republican House Intelligence Committee chair devin nunes, clearing the way for its release today. Trumps move prompted a chorus of outrage from democrats on capitol hill and fed speculation that trumps own handpicked head of fbi, christopher wray, could resign in protest over what the bureau called grave concerns over the memos accuracy. The memo purports to show that the fbi abused its power when it began surveilling Trump Campaign adviser carter page in 2016 due to his dealings with russia. The memo is expected to lay blame on the actions of Deputy Attorney general rod rosenstein, the same man who is the only official with the authority to fire special counsel robert mueller. This is california congressman adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Speaking thursday. The white house knows it would face a firestorm if it fired bob mueller. What is more effective is to fire bob muellers boss. Why is that more effective . Rob rosenstein decides the scope of bob muellers investigation. If Ron Rosenstein is fired and someone takes his place that is a yesman for the president , then they can limit what bob muellers investigation in ways we will never see. Amy House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for congressman nunes to be removed as chair of the House Intelligence Committee over the memo. Democrats say nunes altered the memo after the committee voted to send it to President Trump. At the white house, President Trump refused to address the impending release of the nunes memo thursday, ignoring repeated, shouted questions from reporters as he boarded a helicopter en route to a Republican Party retreat in west virginia. In los angeles, Police Arrested a 12yearold girl thursday, charging her with negligent discharge of a firearm after a shooting at the Sal Castro Middle School left four people injured. Police now say the girl unintentionally triggered a semiautomatic handgun brought into a classroom. Among those hurt was a 15yearold boy who was shot in the head. Officials said he was expected to fully recover. The u. S. Gun violence archive reports this was the 166th accidental shooting so far this year with over 2,000 such incidents last year alone. A new study finds many schoolchildren across the u. S. Face toxic levels of air pollution in classrooms with low income groups and students of color for more likely to be affected. Rely on epa and census data to examine some 90,000 u. S. Public schools. The study found that africanamerican and latino students in particular are more likely to attend schools near industrial sources of air pollution tied to neurological harm including lead, mercury, and cyanide. A warning to our tv viewers, this next story contains some disturbing imagery. The Associated Press reports that scores of minority Rohingya Muslims from a village in burma were massacred by Government Forces last august and buried in five mass graves, who then tried to cover up evidence of their crimes. After Government Forces opened fire on defenseless civilians. The ap cited interviews with two dozen survivors or family members of victims, along with cell phone video footage of the attacks aftermath, smuggled past police by a villager who filmed the corpses after they were unearthed by heavy rains. The video, timestamped september 9th, corroborates witness accounts that burmese soldiers used acid to partially dissolve the bodies of their victims to make their identification more difficult. At the united nations, the special human rights envoy on burma said thursday that the video showed the hallmarks of a genocide. Since august, nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees have fled Burmas Rakhine state to neighboring bangladesh after vigilantes and burmese soldiers unleashed rape and murder while burning hundreds of villages. Meanwhile, a pair of reuters journalists who were arrested after covering the persecution of rohingya villagers have been denied bail by a Burmese Court in yangon. Wa lone and kyaw soe oo face up to 14 years if convicted on the colonialera official secrets act, despite International Condemnation over their arrests. This is wa lone speaking briefly to reporters as police led him away in handcuffs from a courtroom on wednesday. The police told us to sign a document about our arrests when we were detained. They said they will add more charges unless we send the document. Amy on thursday, the office of un secretarygeneral Antonio Gutteres called for the journalists release, citing the erosion of press freedom in burma. In amman, jordan, the head of the arab league warned thursday that the trump administrations decision to withhold tens of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinian Refugees threatens the stability of the entire middle east. The comments came after the state Department Said it would withhold 65 million of 125 million for the u. N. Relief and works agency known as unrwa. This is unrwa commissionergeneral pierre karhenbuhl, speaking to arab league leaders. What is at stake excellencies is the dignity of palestine refugees and regional stability. If 525,000 students no longer have access to education, if 3 million patients cannot access 1. 5 million if people can no longer receive emergency assistance, we will undoubtedly witness and see a catastrophic rise in insecurity. In cuba, the eldest son of fidel castro commited suicide on thursday after a long struggle with depression. Fidel castro diazbalart, who was known affectionately as fidelito or little fidel for his resemblance to his father, was 68 years old. Castro diazbalart was a Nuclear Physicist who studied in the former soviet union. He was also a relative of some of the most strident anticastro cuban exiles living in the United States, and cousin of congressman Mario Diazbalart and former congressman lincoln diazbalart, both republicans from florida. Kenyas government is defying an order to allow three of the Largest Television channels to temporarily resume operations after the stations were forced off the air for broadcasting footage of the symbolic inauguration of opposition candidate raila odinga. Odinga took second place in a president ial vote last year that was later overturned by courts, who cited mismanagement by the electoral commission. Odinga boycotted a revote in october, paving the way for an easy victory by incumbent president uhuru kenyatta. In the united kingdom, the labour party is considering forcing homeowners to send lots sell lots to construct affordable housing. The proposal comes after Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn said this week that if elected prime minister, he would immediately purchase a dozen homes for homeless residents. In the Pacific Island nation of the maldives, a court has thrown out terrorism charges against former president Mohamed Nasheed and several other former politicians. Mohamed nasheed was the maldives first democratically elected president , known internationally for his work on Climate Change. In 2012, he was ousted in what he called an armed coup by supporters of former dictator Maumoon Abdul gayoom and has since been living in exile in great britain. In cape town, south africa, officials have ordered water use cut in half as the city is it acted to run out of water on april 16th, a day thats been dubbed day zero. Officials say a combination of urban sprawl and Climate Change is responsible for the water crisis in south africas secondlargest city. Meanwhile, in california, officials with the department of Water Resources said thursday the state could be headed into another drought, after a measurement of the winter snowpack in the sierra nevadas yielded just 13. 6 inches, or about 14 of normal levels. Between 2011 and 2016, much of california faced an exceptional drought, unprecedented in recorded history, before heavy rains and snow from an el nino weather pattern brought a reprieve last year. Climate scientists have warned that humaninduced Global Warming is making much of california far drier than its historical norm, threatening crops and helping to fuel unprecedented wildfires. In austin, texas, City Council Members voted 101 on thursday to bar their city from doing business with any Company Involved in the construction of President Trumps expanded wall on the u. S. Mexico border. Austin joins dozens of other cities whove moved to divest from border wall contractors. In response, deputy secretary of Homeland Security elaine duke this week accused cities of blackballing companies, telling a crowd at the Border Security expo in san antonio the practice is something we shouldnt be tolerating. In california, San Francisco george gasconney says he will throw out more than 3000 marijuanarelated convictions dating back decades, while reviewing whether to change thousands of other felony drug convictions to misdemeanors. The comes just weeks after californias legalization of Recreational Marijuana use went into full effect with the new year. And dennis peron, longtime medicalmarijuana advocate, has died at the age of 72. Peron was a leader in the campaign that resulted in passage of proposition 215 in 1996, the firstever state law legalizing cannabis for medical use. Peron was an activist during the hiv epidemic of the 1980s and advocated for the use of marijuana to treat symptoms of aids patients. Peron was a vietnam veteran who blamed exposure to agent orange for the lung cancer that ultimately contributed to his death. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We begin todays show looking at a decadesold mystery. Behind who helped Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 leaked the pentagon papers. The 7000page classified history outlining the true extent of u. S. Involvement in vietnam. Time, the pentagon papers represented the biggest leak of classified documents in history. Daniel ellsberg once faced espionage charges and possibly life in prison for leaking the documents, which he photocopied while working as an analyst for the rand corporation. The nexen Administration Made it comes to ruin his life going so far as to break into his psychiatrists office to uncover incriminating information. Henry kissinger dubbed him the most dangerous man in america. Title of abecame the documentary about Daniel Ellsberg. It was the evening of october 1, 1969 when i first smuggled several hundred pages of topsecret documents out of my safe at the rand corporation. It contained 47 volumes. Studyn was to xerox the and reveal the secret history of the vietnam war to the american people. The fbi was trying to find out who gave the New York Times a copy of the pentagons secret study. Like a thunderclap, you get the New York Times publishing the pentagon papers and the country is panicking. This is an attack on the whole integrity of government. If whole file cabinets can be stolen and made available to the press, you cannot have order in the government anymore. It was staggering. The raw topsecret, eyes only documents. I think it is time in this country to quit making National Heroes out of those who steal secrets and publish them in the newspaper. In my first year of marriage, we are talking about him going to prison for the rest of his life. We felt so strongly that we were dealing with a National Security crisis, Henry Kissinger said that dr. Daniel ellsberg was the most dangerous man in america and he had to be stopped. Amy an excerpt from the most dangerous man in america. While the Nixon Administration attempted to send him to life in prison, authorities never charged anyone with helping him. As interest in the pentagon papers gross thanks to the new Steven Spielberg film the post, about the Washington Post role in revealing the pentagon papers, one of his coconspirators has come out of the shadows. His name is Gar Alperovitz. For more than 40 years, he kept a close secret. Helped, he clandestinely sectionslsberg deliver of the pentagon papers do newspapers. He kept his role in the pentagon papers leak a secret until this week, when he spoke to the new yorker magazine. The identities of who else worked with them remains a secret. Daniel ellsberg says the secret role this group played was so crucial in releasing the pentagon papers that he gave them a code name, the Lavender Hill mob. Alperovitz went by the alias mr. Boston. Ellsberg told the new yorker, he took care of all of the cloak and dagger stuff. Gar alperovitz now joins us from washington dc. Dr. Was about how you became the conduit to the newspapers and why you wanted to play this role . Gar i had been working in the government, i had worked in the senate and i saw the gulf of tonkin resolution come in, which was a fraudulent resolution authorizing powerful action by. He government i had also read about the bombing of hiroshima and how insiders made decisions against the Public Interest and lied to the public. I met dan by accident. He invited me to dinner and we hit it off. One thing led to another and the next day or two, i was presented with the fact that these papers were available and we could make them public. The question was should we do that and could i help . I decided obviously it was an important thing to do. The goal of tonkin resolution, which had authorized this massive war, very much what happened like any rack, was iraq, was a phony resolution based on distorted facts. Millions of people were going to die and it was important to try to do what one could do to stop the war and what i could do to help was help with the paper distribution. Amy how did you do that . , 7000he question was pages of paper and dan was very anxious, understandably, to get the story out once it had been blocked out by the New York Times. Amy explain that. For people who dont understand what it means to be blocked by the New York Times. We are talking about 1971. To had gotten these papers the New York Times and wanted the stories published, but explain what happened next. Gar the Nixon Administration went to court and stopped the New York Times from publishing. That was a major infringement of the constitutional right of the free press, but nonetheless there was a stop. Then the question was, it was stopped, how could you bring the story to the American Public . Decisions clandestine in which decisionmakers in the government knew that they were doing something that was a most impossible in many peoples lives would be lost and there was great deception to the public. That is what the pentagon papers show. If it went on to put other papers, which had not yet been stopped, because they had done nothing yet, could they publish the papers . The next one was the Washington Post. We got the papers to the Washington Post and they published and then they were stopped and we tried to keep that process going as long as we could. Amy explain what happened with Washington Post. There is more attention because of the Steven Spielberg film that stars tom hanks and meryl streep, the post. How contact with the Washington Post was made. Gar it was very simple. You had to reach people. This is the day before cell phones. I actually went around the area, the boston area using coin phones, public phones that were everywhere. I called up and i had the alias or the nickname mr. Boston and i spoke with someone there and arranged a meeting because ben actually knew dan. He had been at the rand corporation. He came up and dan with him in a motel room. He gave him the papers. That was the next step. Then, they were stopped, and we moved on to the next newspaper. It was very straightforward so long as you could use pay telephones which you dont see much of anymore. A clipm going to go to of Daniel Ellsberg talking about that, but first we are going to break. We are speaking with mr. Boston, well that was the codename for Gar Alperovitz, the historian and political economist, who has just revealed he was one of the people who secretly helped Daniel Ellsberg leaked the 7000pages of the pentagon papers to get them to newspapers as president nixon tried to stop the publication of the pentagon papers at the New York Times. Stay with us. [music break] ice by la santa cecilia. In our next segment, you will hear from a woman who has taken sanctuary in a carbondale, colorado search for fear of deport church for fear of deportation. We are continuing with mr. Boston, the alias for Gar Alperovitz, one of the people who helped Daniel Ellsberg at the pentagon papers out to newspapers around the country. I want to turn to Daniel Ellsberg speaking in 2007, explaining how he managed to elude the fbi and get the pentagon papers to Washington Post editor Ben Bagdikian. I was not in a position to travel at this point. So, i did arrange with a former colleague from rand, ben , editor of the Washington Post who had spent a year or two at rand is a recent consultant. Can you hear me . Ben bagdikian i said i knew. I contacted him and arranged to have him come to boston. It was a colorful story, which i think is told in the thing you have there. , weame to boston, cambridge took a room at the treadway inn near harvard square. My wife and i brought these ,oxes of ill assorted papers tremendous stuff, we have not collated to him and we spent the night with him collating and putting them in an order that he could take back with him. In the morning, he had this big box, he needed a cord for the box. He asked the treadway, the motel owner said, somebody has been tethering a dog outside, i can give you the dog cord, so he tied up the box and he went off. My wife and i looked at the television before we went home. We had been all night on this now. This is about 7 30 in the morning. Home with some fbi agents knocking on the door. [laughter] on live television. They were knocking on the door, so we thought, maybe this is not the best time to go back home actually. [laughter] what had happened is that sid zion, who was mad at the times for firing him, had found out quickly who their source was and to get back at them coming he had revealed it on a radio show the night before. The fbi was at my door and having seen it on television, i was now in a position to not be caught and to put out the other copies. So, we did not go home. We went underground in cambridge. [laughter] for the next 13 days. The fbi conducted with the paper said was the biggest manhunt since the lindbergh kidnapping. [laughter] we were in cambridge, they were all over the world in the south of france, california, i had a feeling there was a good deal of junketing going on by the fbi looking for us. Meanwhile, we were putting it out to these other papers. Amy that was Daniel Ellsberg describing this to thousands of unitarians in 2007 celebrating the history of the beacon press. This is a little complicated. Dan ellsberg released the pentagon papers to Ben Bagdikian of the Washington Post, one of the conditions or a favor he asked was to get these papers to senator mike gracve who could read them into the congressional record and in so doing all of the papers, not just articles in the New York Times and Washington Post could be released and they would be published by the beacon press. You can see our whole show on , danielh mike gravel ellsberg, and the publisher of beacon press together as they told the story. ,en bagdikian Gar Alperovitz as Daniel Ellsberg just described this manhunt, what role do you play in that as he was underground with his wife in cambridge . The first decision was what to do with 7000 pages of documents. Dan was understandably wanted to get all of this out to the public. If we brokehim that it up, we could keep the story going maybe 10, 15 weeks by moving it from one newspaper to another newspaper to another newspaper in bite sized chunks people could understand, but it would also keep the story going as they closed down one newspaper after another and that is just what we did. I managed that process with the help of two or three graduate students and other people who were involved in getting food to dan, making sure there was housing, taking the papers to reporters in ways that could not be detected. Of themcalled some runners, but i think they did more, they were very courageous people, taking these topsecret papers and getting them to the reporters in ways that would keep them secret. Amy the late, great historian howard zinn played a role in this. Did marcus raskin, one of the founders of the institute for policy studies, play a role . Gar i think that marcus actually gave the papers independently to the New York Times. I have not run down the relationship between how dan gave them to the times and how did. I think probably both did in one way or another. Amy you played a key role in getting an interview with Walter Cronkite of dan ellsberg, is that right . Gar yes, they were very happy and anxious to do it, but i arranged the meeting with cronkite. We had to bring cronkite to cambridge, mass and do it in a way that would not be followed and traced. One of the friends offer their living room for a Television Interview and then one of the people, one of the graduate students took cronkite and his team around cambridge from the airport, from boston to cambridge, making sure they were not followed and finally bringing him to this friends house where the interview took place. Amy the code, mr. Boston, the Lavender Hill mob, talk about how you came up with these. Gar mr. Boston was spontaneous. A name that i kind of picked out of the air for reasons that i have no idea why i did that. The Lavender Hill mob was something that came later as we looked back on it in a way that this very small group of people tried to help dan get a serious Distribution Strategy going. Amy so, can you talk about why you decided to come forward now . During this period, this the First Anniversary of the inauguration of President Trump. Is that playing a role . Dropped me tos this judgment that it was time to talk about this. One, it came back into the news because of the big movie, the post, which describes some of this. It had been out of the news and out of consciousness for a long time. It offered an opportunity to think about the subject in a very powerful way because lots of folks have seen the movie and race to the subject. Secondly, the dangers of this administration, particularly ive written about Nuclear Weapons a great deal. The dangers of this administration, i think it is time for people to think through what they can do, however small, however they want to find a way to actually find personally to do something to try to begin to build up a more democratic option and a way to avoid some of the real dangers. The possibility of nuclear war in korea is a real possibility. There has been nuclear war in asia, obviously. The bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, whichever i written a great deal about. People need to think seriously about what they can do to make for a more Peaceful World that does not repeat those mistakes. Amy the issue of nuclear war raced once again by President Trump talking about expanding the Nuclear Arsenal in his state of the Union Address this week. To theortedly saying joint chiefs of staff, if we have Nuclear Weapons, why dont we use them . You are a longtime historian, have written eloquently about the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki. Can you talk about this . Why not use them . Gar the weapons we have today are so many times more powerful than anything that was used in world war ii. I would mention that at that point against the will of the joint chiefs of staff, all of whom came out after the war, all of the top military leaders with one exception, publicly after the war, saying the bombing was totally unnecessary in her road from a. Hiroshima. We are at a case were Nuclear Weapons are many times more powerful and many thousands of them and very dangerous because they are so easily launched. My hope is both a public action will begin to build up, understanding that this is a threshold that should not be crossed and i hope some people within the government, just as during world war ii the joint chiefs tried to stop that action, which was unnecessary and they knew was unnecessary, i hope people begin to think what they can do personally. I think that as an individual decision for everyone to make, what kind of things they can do in the circumstances they face. I think the 1 trillion that is now about to be spent to upgrade and increase the Nuclear Weapon supply, 1 trillion. We are going into a whole new that isth a government so far irresponsible in so many other ways that this is a very dangerous period of american history. Amy you write a lot about changing the system, a lot about economics. As that also played a role given the passage of the tax law . You discussed the issue of inequality. We are seeing the greatest growth of inequality in this country than any time in history. Gar i dont think we are going to change what we do in Foreign Policy in a fundamental way until we change what we do in the system. We are at a place where we are facing what i would call a slow boiling systemic crisis. Traditional corporate capitalism producing great inequality, ecological destruction, increasing tensions in racial matters, gender matters, violence abroad. That process, the danger of slipping over into some form of formal or informal repression is very real. On the other hand, if the corporate capitalist system fails, the state socialist system also fails. The basis of a new society and a new direction is really thinking through what can be a genuinely community sustaining peaceful vision of what the next system is . Im a historian and political economist and i see it as how do we build the next two to three decades . Maybe taking off from what bernie has shown us, activists and the black community and the Gay Community and the feminist community, the environmental community, there is a building up process that has to go beyond the politics of today toward a transformative vision much different than the vision that now supports Nuclear Weapons and the military outreach. I think we are in that period and it could be a long period, but the lesson of all of this for me is that we need to go both deeper and more boldly and begin building right from the bottom up with a view to let me say it carefully, systems change all the time in history. I think we have the opportunity to establish the conditions, if we are serious, of laying down the foundations for a transformation. I did not say change the system tomorrow, i said building the basis of a transformation. Amy are you proud of what you did in helping Daniel Ellsberg getting the pentagon papers out . Gar proud is a funny word. I did what i thought was necessary. I dont think of it as pride. But im glad i did it. Amy i want to thank you for being with us. Gar alperovitz, revealed this week he secretly helped Daniel Ellsberg leaked the pentagon papers. He is the author most recently of principles of a pluralist commonwealth. This is democracy now when we come back, we go to and at this couple parsonage, a unitarian parsonage to speak with a woman in sanctuary. Stay with us. [music break] amy pastors aplenty. As President Trump continues his crackdown on immigrant sanctuary in the age of trump says more people are now taking sanctuary than any time in the United States since the 1980s. We end todays show in colorado, where we hear from another immigrant rights leader who has taken sanctuary, sandra lopez, who is now facing deportation to mexico after living in colorado for 17 years. Shes a mother of three u. S. Born children, alex, edwin, and areli. This is sandra lopez speaking to supporters who marched to the two Rivers Unitarian Universalist Church in carbondale, colorado, as part of the 2018 womens march. Sandra we are all the same with human rights. Dignity ist human not based on one legal paper. I have lost the fear, why . Because im a human being. I have feelings. Just like you. I love my children just like you. Amy a few weeks ago, i visited sandra lopez at the parsonage of the two Rivers Unitarian Universalist Church in carbondale, colorado. I began by asking her why she came to the United States 17 years ago. Well, i came to the United States with my husband, we had many dreams, of course i was running from the corrupted government, a lot of poverty and violence. We came with many dreams, we were poor, honest, hardworking people and we have dreams, dreams of getting ahead, but unfortunately, being a migrant in this country holds a very high price and we are unjustly persecuted, often times unjustly just because we dont have a legal document, legal papers here in the United States. How old were you when you came to the United States . I was about 24 years old and it was very dangerous. I tried to cross the border with my husband to read the person who was going to take us across was totally drunk and it was obvious. I told my husband, how are we going to cross with this man . He is falling down, he is so drunk. It is very dangerous. We might be going along the road with him and suffer a bad accident and die. Of course, i refused. I absolutely refused. We were a large group about 13 of us. We started talking, analyzing the situation, and we refused. We agreed not to cross the border with him and i told this coyote, please leave us in the desert, i would rather be sleeping in the desert than risking my life with you. If you are going to take me across, come in a sound state of mind. Well, we then slept all night in the desert, we went about a day and a half with no water. We were hungry. We saw scorpions going by near where we were. We even saw a snake and we did not sleep all night out of fear, but then the coyote came back in a good state of mind and we were able to cross. And so how did you end up here in carbondale . Sandra now living in carbondale , im living with a lot of fear, a lot of fear because im under the shadow of fear. Im being persecuted because i dont have papers. What they dont understand is that my best legal papers are being a mother. I dont need a legal document to be a mother, to be able to defend my love for my children. I give everything for them, i give my life for them, everything for my children, my family, and any sacrifice that i might make for them is going to be worthwhile because for me the material things dont make sense. Money does not make sense. For me, what makes sense is my role, giving myself over to them as in my role as a mother. It is such a beautiful career to be a mother, to be a father, and now im facing the threat of separation and that has really hurt my feelings, wounded my heart. Me about your children. How old are they, what are their names, where are they living now . Alex is 19 years old, he just turned 19 last week in sanctuary. He is at the university in Grand Junction and he got a job to be able to pay for school because i was supporting him with his studies, but i cant do so anymore. I left my job, my home, my children, my home, my household, where i come of the mother, i left it all to be able to be with them here for this moment. Keeping away from deportation. I also have a son Edwin Gonzalez , he is in middle school in riverside newcastle and he stays here with me and sanctuary. He has School Monday through thursday. He stays with me thursday, friday, saturday and it makes me so happy. My son alex comes and visits at times, but he cant be visiting me all the time because he is studying and working at the same time. He is studying mechanics at the university of Grand Junction and i had to bring my daughter, she turned two years old here in sanctuary, and we have a small Birthday Celebration for her. I had to bring her with me. It is very difficult to have to bring just my daughter with me. Amy why did you decide edwin, your 13yearold, would not come with you and stay with your husband and your 2yearold would come . Well, it has been a very difficult decision. It was october 19, that was the last day that i got my son up and got him ready for school. As his mother, i gave him a big hug and i cried a lot. I told him, my son, i love you very much. He gave me a hug too and i said goodbye, but i did not want him to see me crying, so i turned my back so that he could not see just how sad i looked. Well, that was the last day that i got him ready and sent him off to school. My son edwin is 13 years old. I decided that he should stay with his father because there are so many changes for the children. Him, an enormous change to the psychological harm that they cause our children. This is a system that separates families, that is the real hardship. Separation causes permanent damage for a lifetime. This is a system that causes harm to ones heart. Amy can you tell me what happened in 2010, your first interaction with police and ice, what put you on their radar . Sandra well, you can imagine, it was the saddest day of my life. My husband and i have a small argument, my child, ive taught them to dial 911 and so my fouryearold dialed 911 and then hung up and then the police came and asked what was happening and we said, nothing, nothing is happening. And the Police Officer was asking questions and my husband did not answer any of the questions, neither did i. My husband did not accuse me and i did not accuse him. It was a simple argument that a couple could work out at any moment. When the officer asked me if i had a colorado id, i said, no, i dont have a colorado id. He immediately changed his behavior toward me. He started shouting at me and he ordered that i be arrested. He put the handcuffs on me and my husband said, what can i do for my wife . The Police Officer responded, you cannot do absolutely anything. And the officer immediately turned me over to ice that same night. That same night in the Early Morning hours i was interviewed by an ice agent by telephone. So i had my interview with ice, they had charges against me, they took me in on Domestic Violence charges. My husband was so indignant about that accusation he spoke with the prosecutor, he spoke with him quite a bit and the prosecutor told him, dont worry , i have studied your wifes case very carefully and we are going to drop the charges. So, they dropped the Domestic Violence charges that they had against me and the judge told me when i was standing before him, i hope sandra that immigration will be compassionate with you. I said, thank you, judge. He knew the system i was facing. It is an unjust system, an unjust system that is separating many families. As a leader, i invite you that we should never lose our dignity to defend their human rights. Let us not let them divide us, separate us from our children. Life is so short that you can lose it in a second. We should not be repressed. They repress us just because we are poor. They think that there are laws that are only for the poor people like me. But i have dignity. I lift up my voice and say, here im, im an honest, hardworking immigrant raising my voice for those 11 million immigrants, those of us who have come here to work, who have come here with dreams of getting ahead and we have never lost that dignity of defending our human rights because we love our children, we love being free and having peace and freedom, but now we are persecuted by an unjust system. Amy right before you came into sanctuary, you were going to have to report, as you did every year, to ice. What led you to believe that this time would be different . Sandra well, i had my ice appointment every year, the way they worked every year, i had to sign a paper according to which i could not leave the United States. It is so illogical to sign Something Like that. Now, if you days before october 19 of last year, i was denied my state, which would have allowed me to remain in the United States. When my attorney gave me the news, i knew what this meant. Imagine on october 19 last year, i had my appointment with ice at 9 30, one day before my lawyer called me and very concerned he said, look at the situation and i said, you know what . I know the risk. If they deny my state, im going to be arrested, im going to be put in that unjust system. I would likely have to pay a 7,000 to,000 to spend even more money on the system. I have already paid about 28,000 for the system. Ive tried to do Everything Possible to be able to be legal and ive not been able to do so. I was not willing to be arrested because they are uprooting me from my home, from my children, from my life, from my future. To want to go into such a situation, as if nothing were happening . No, i made the valiant decision to go into sanctuary to opt for sanctuary. It is not an easy decision and im here avoiding deportation so that i can be with my children. Children areee u. S. Citizens . Sandra yes. My children are citizens. My three children are citizens. Life with myy husband a whole life made here in the United States. Illusions made everything here, but it is very regrettable to only work for other people when you come into the system because it causes great harm, psychologically and economically. It is true that i raise up my voice and i say that we are persecuted, we are a huge business for ice. All of us immigrants are big business for ice. Why . Because we pay a lot of money. They sell us a very expensive dream, buying time and time and that is paying thousands and thousands of dollars. It is money that you just throw into the trashcan. And im here showing my face and saying, be compassionate, change those laws, those unjust laws. What is that beautiful story behind the statue of liberty worth . The whole think swearing ement, we are appealing the whole sanctuary movement, we are appealing to that history, the history behind the statue of liberty. What liberty . In awaiting deportation sanctuary after paying thousands and thousands of dollars after working for others as a slave. Is that liberty . No. It is time. It is enough. Let us raise up our voices, defend our dignity, and say, here we are, change that unjust law. Amy we have visited other people in sanctuary in colorado. At the Unitarian Church in o fernandez and jeanette visquiera. A private bill was introduced and passed by congressman jared polis to protect them and they came out of sanctuary. Sanctuary. Was in what theirk about experience meant for you . Sandra well, imagine, ive had contact with them, but never with arturo, but believe me that each case of hours, of those of us who opt for sanctuary, we have a very strong connection by skype, we talk about our respective histories, our experiences, and we have learned a great deal from one another because, believe me, being a leader carries a high price. We talk about strategies, what are we going to do . . Hat is our next step we always need to have strategies to be able to get ahead defending our dignity as human beings. Putting these strategies together so as to struggle for our dignity as human beings to be able to get ahead. Believe me that a six months stay or the private bond that was given to jeanette and that was given to arturo, that is just something really quite insignificant. It is practically nothing. But they are offering you for all of this pain, all of this work, all of this anguish that we immigrants are experiencing here, it is nothing really because we go through so much, we experience so much stress here. Is this the american dream, i ask myself . How many feel ashamed of what they do . I know that there are many Beautiful People that feel shameful about how we are treated, believe me. There are very nice people with beautiful hearts who rally, who help us, and who are here supporting us. Those are the people who we need to have around us. And being a leader is not easy because they want to separate those leaders, but we are in contact, we are unified. Im very upset about what happened to ingrids husband. It really shook me and it shook sanctuary because this is an attack on sanctuary and it affects me as a mother and as a wife and as ingrids friend. It is really has really affected us a great deal. But i want to tell you, ingrid, you are not alone. ,ou have all of us in sanctuary all of your Community Supporting ingrids husband, and it is an attack. They want to weaken us. They want to instill fear and separate us from one another. But no, we will have to be more astute and have to organize ideas and move forward. Get out of the shadow of fear and raise up our voices because as the saying goes, divide and conquer. But no, we are going to be strong and unified and we are going to defend our dignity and defend sanctuary. This is my personal opinion. Amy sandra lopez, who sought sanctuary in a unitarian parsonage in carbondale, colorado. I spoke to her on january 13, two days after ice agents arrested the husband of another colorado immigrant rights leader who is sanctuary, Ingrid Encalada latorre. Her husband, eliseo jurado, was arrested by six ice agents while he was shopping at a safeway, in what many consider a targeted retaliation against the sanctuary movement. ,pecial thanks to laura clark dennis moynahan, and charlie roberts. That does it for our show. Democracy now is hiring a fulltime news fellow. Submit your application by february 5. Find out more at democracynow. Org. Im amy goodman