For Media Contact, further inquiries or interview requests, please contact:
Uchechukwu Onwa -uchechukwu@qdep.org
Sam Polanco -bsamuelpolanco83@gmail.com
Dzana Ashworth -dzana.ashworth@gmail.com
New York, NY | On Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, thousands of fascists marched on the U.S. Capitol during the Electoral College vote count, looking to defend a blatant lie –that President Trump won the 2020 election. The “American patriots” displayed their loyalty to Trump by assaulting, vandalizing, and disrespecting Congress, the Capitol building, and the U.S. Constitution.
Seeing Trump’s MAGA supporters along with QAnon theorists and Proud Boys, a white supremacist hate group, commingling with and even taking selfies with, D.C. police is further proof of what some have been saying long before this presidency, and even louder over the last year: that there is a schism of inequality in this country. There is the U.S. that benefits from a long history of white supremacy, and those who are experiencing long-standing abuse as an outcome of racism, capitalism, and exploitation.
The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP) denounces President Trump’s clear incitement of violence and demands for his immediate removal from office, as well as the resignation of all members of Congress who supported the President’s false election claims.
“This reminds me when Trump threatened the voters saying that if Biden won the presidency, the U.S. would become another Venezuela, but it’s Trump who today wanted to turn the U.S. into Venezuela, where they want to cling to power at any cost,” says QDEP member, Edinson Calderon, an immigrant from Venezuela,
“Trump said to his followers after his rally: go to the capitol. As always, politicians sending their followers like cannon fodder while from afar Trump just watches everything happen,” Edinson Calderon added.
This is a part of a long arc of history of oppression and subjugation in the U.S. “The right has always been coddled, protected, and encouraged in the practice of white supremacy, from the genocidal slaughter of the indigenous people to the holocaust of chattel slavery, wherein African descendants in particular and in the vast majority were lynched, burned, tarred, feathered, and otherwise terrorized for centuries!” says “E” Erobos Abzu Lamashhtu, a QDEP member and an immigrant from Jamaica.
In light of the terrifying double standard and violence of Wednesday’s insurrection and attempted coup, QDEP continues to adamantly support and advocate for Black Lives. QDEP knows that Black Lives Matter –including the often forgotten Black queer lives, Black trans lives, and Black immigrant lives
As an abolitionist organization, QDEP also continues to call for the defunding of police, redistribution of law enforcement budgets to community resources and research regarding collective care and support, and the dismantling of ICE and Homeland Security, the institutions which threaten our membership and force the very existence of our organization.
In QDEP, many of our members are well aware of political unrest, and how it could affect us, as well as how it has affected us in the past in our home countries.
“The Republicans insisted on the construction of a wall in order to block the passage of undocumented immigrants. Yesterday when they entered the capitol they ironically demonstrated that the walls are useless,” says Aneiry Zapata, a QDEP member and an immigrant from Honduras. We saw photos of many people scaling the walls of the capitol.
Despite all of this, we realize that everything we’ve seen, heard, and experienced during the present government has forced many eyes wide open.
What this series of events has proven is that law enforcement absolutely has the ability to show restraint and not shoot first, ask questions later. “It’s infuriating that this overwhelmingly white domestic terrorist mob is given empathy of life, when on the other hand, when People of Color are peacefully protesting for Black Lives, equality, and equal protection of the law, they were shown no mercy,” says Uchechukwu Onwa, QDEP’S Organizing Director and a black gay man from Nigeria.
“The riot clearly proves that the police protect the lives of white people and threaten the lives of Black people, confirming that the police do not keep us safe, and this gives us more cause to defund andabolish the police. The riot was yet another sign of Trump as an incompetent, malicious, and violent president, who is unable to handle the truth of his failure,” Uchechukwu Onwa added.
Movements that already existed continue to grow stronger. We find leaders who listen to what we have to say and what we need. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were chosen because we saw in them, along with grassroots organizers who helped get them elected, one path out of all the despair and injustice. We can only hope that they make good on their word and that our efforts on the ground will encourage those moving into Washington to think bigger and bolder in the next four years.
For them and for Georgia’s newly elected leaders to win, they needed not only votes but also our voices. WE are many: we the people share the same dreams and visions. We are blessed because even amidst what’s happened, especially in this last year, QDEP keeps faith in our communities. In the interim, QDEP wants to remind our members, fellow immigrants, and allies that we can and must rely on each other and our communities to keep each other safe in this dangerous time.
Despite and even in spite of the desperate hate we saw on Wednesday, QDEP will continue to work for a safe and bountiful world. We will continue to fight to free our members held in detention, free our siblings from being herded like cattle through the prison industrial complex, and free ourselves from the heavily policed society that seeks to chain us.
Now, more than ever, our eyes are open.
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The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project(QDEP) assists folks coming out of immigration detention in securing structural, health/wellness, educational, legal, and emotional support and services. We work to organize around the structural barriers and state violence that LGBTQIA TS & GNC detainee/undocumented folks face related to their immigration status, race, sexuality, and gender expression/identity.
We are committed to assisting folks in building lives outside of detention, to breaking down the barriers that prevent folks from building fulfilling and productive lives, and to keeping queer families intact by demandingan end to deportations, detention, and policing. We believe in creating a narrative of thriving, not just surviving.
QDEP is a proud member of the Detention Watch Network, Freedom For Immigrants, New York Immigration Coalition, AbolishICE NYNJ Coalition, as well as the International Detention Coalition.QDEP is a fiscally sponsored project of theCenter for Transformative Action(CTA). CTA, an educational 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, is legally and financially responsible for all our project activities.
Informative References:
The Hill
Cori Bush introduces legislation to sanction, remove all House members who supported election challenges
