This toolkit is designed to help JCRCs and Jewish community relations institutions navigate responses to the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good and the broader immigration crackdown by ICE and other agencies by offering sample language used by JCPA, JCRCs and other Jewish communal institutions.
JCPA’s Position on Immigration and ICE
The JCPA supports an equitable domestic immigration enforcement policy that protects the human rights of all newcomers and the civil liberties of every U.S. resident. The JCPA recognizes that nations have the right and need to secure their bordersand that national security is of critical importance. But this must be done in a way that prioritizes compassionate Jewish values including human rights, rule of law, due process, family reunification, and the economic and cultural contributions made by immigrants. In light of the expanded immigration enforcement into cities and including even legal immigrants or undocumented immigrants without a violent criminal record, the JCPA opposes any new funding for the campaign of enhanced immigration enforcement unless there are new provisions that:
- Require transparent and neutral civil rights investigations into the deaths of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and any other deaths.
- Require DHS to cooperate with relevant state and local investigations into the conduct of immigration enforcement
- End the enhanced immigration enforcement in our cities – including the random stops, door to door searches, and harassment of individuals based on perceived characteristics like accent or skin color – that exceeds the focus on violent criminal offenders, threatens civil rights, undermines rule of law, and increases the risk of violence.
- Require all agents to visibly display IDs and wear body cameras and prohibit the use of masks that obscure their face.
- End illegal searches or entering homes without a signed judicial warrant
- Removal of any agents with ties to white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, or other forms of prejudice with a review of ICE hiring procedures.
- Invalidate the Executive Order on “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” and rejecting the use of the bigoted and antisemitic lie of an “invasion” to justify this expanded immigration enforcement
- End immigration enforcement activities at hospitals, courts, clinics, houses of worship, schools, shelters, and other sensitive locations, such as non-public areas of government and nonprofit service agencies and food distribution sites.
- Create alternatives to detention that prioritize education and medical care, promote family unification, and allow immigrants awaiting proceedings to wait in the most humane conditions possible for the least amount of time possible.
JCPA Press Releases on ICE and Immigration
- This is what authoritarianism looks like in practice — and the federal administration is telling us not to believe our own eyes.
- Our Jewish values demand we speak with moral clarity: we know where unchecked power leads, and that true safety can never come through fear, militarization, or violence.
- Across the country, aggressive federal tactics — from unlawfully deploying the National Guard exclusively in Democratic-led cities, to using military-style force against communities justified by xenophobic, racist, and antisemitic “invasion” and “replacement” lies — have targeted immigrants, protesters, and communities of color, escalated fear and violence, and undermined the rule of law and our democracy instead of advancing real safety.
- We know where the normalization of such extremism and violence leads – from Charlottesville and the broader cycle of extremism that followed, to the January 6th insurrection and rising political and hate-fueled violence. When our government gives license to extremism and violence, it makes all of us less safe.
- Our Jewish values compel us to speak out against such injustice, and JCPA will continue to work with our community partners across the country to protect and advance a truly inclusive democratic society in which all of us are safe and free.
- We stand with the entire Minneapolis community today in mourning the loss of Ms. Good and pray for her family, and reiterate the need for a full, transparent investigation of this incident that includes local, state, and federal law enforcement entities.
- This killing reflects the dangerous militarization of immigration enforcement spreading across the country.
- Our Jewish values call us to protect the vulnerable, welcome the stranger, and demand justice. JCPA stands with faith and civil rights partners who are documenting what is occurring in their neighborhoods, and we call on the Trump administration to end this escalation of militarized immigration enforcement.
- The travel ban was wrong and dangerous back when it was an unconstitutional Muslim ban in the first Trump administration, and it is even more so now. In addition to the continued attack on the rule of law, this order continues to spread the baseless and nativist lie that immigrants – or even visitors from another country – are inherently dangerous.
- President Trump has said that this ban was signed now in part as a response to the horrific and tragic attack on the Jewish community in Boulder, Colorado. This is wrong and a dangerous co-opting of our pain.
- To date, the administration has been focused on antisemitism from the political left and on university campuses; at the same time, it has cut programs and resources dedicated to monitoring and countering white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and anti-government antisemitism and extremism — such as the extremism that inspired the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in American history at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh.
- This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings.”
- Will “antisemitic activity” also include such extremism?
- The Jewish community knows well not only the importance of welcoming the stranger but also the dangerous path down which scapegoating, fear, and bigotry lead. These draconian immigration policies don’t just threaten our core values and freedoms — they also fundamentally make Jewish Americans, and so many other communities, less safe by normalizing hate and dehumanization and further emboldening violent extremists.
- Our Jewish history and values make immigration policy deeply personal. As Jews, we have been exiled, denied refuge, scapegoated, detained, and exploited. We know that a society that isn’t safe for all people is not safe for Jews.
JCRC and Jewish Communal Statements:
Take Action with JCPA
Additional Resources
HIAS: Support Our Immigrant Neighbors
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