Rapid Response
About Rapid Response
Rapid Response is a program that offers guidance to people targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in the area, and recruits citizen allies to respond to the presence of ICE in our neighborhoods by witnessing, taking video, and providing information to legal teams.
The San Mateo County Migrawatch hotline number is:
203-NO-MIGRA
(203-666-4472)
Rapid response includes all of our foolish ways, especially witness, accompaniment, and advocacy. When citizen allies show up in support of immigrant families and witness ICE activities, we bend the arc of the universe toward justice. Our accompaniment of the families of detainees helps them to cope with the loss of a loved one. The witness we bear in rapid response helps inform our advocacy by exposing the many abuses of the system.
The presence of witnesses can have an immediate impact on a family threatened with deportation. Because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rarely follows proper procedure, oftentimes detentions can be thrown out of court in suppression hearings if there are credible witnesses to a detention or arrest. Not only can witnessing in this way help stop abuses by ICE, it can keep a family together.
We coordinate our efforts with Faith in Action and other Bay Area groups to help form Rapid Response teams that can respond to a potential ICE raid quickly. Each county in the Bay Area has a hotline to call when ICE arrives. Dispatchers then contact Rapid Responders who can quickly arrive at the scene to record what happens.By reporting our observations to legal teams, rapid response can lead to due process—even cancellation of removal. When 50 or 100 people per zip code are showing up with video cameras to witness law enforcement activities, we will change history together. See all the local rapid response hotline numbers here.
A related program, Theatre of the Oppressed, brings the community together to practice our improvisation skills and practice rapid response scenarios. Our goal is to build a movement where it is commonplace for people to witness law enforcement activities and protect each other from all forms of bullying, violence, and abuse, whatever the source.