Latino activists in Waukegan, Illinois are protesting the renaming of a school after former President Barack Obama, The Hill reported.
Thomas Jefferson Middle School is undergoing a name change due to Jefferson’s history as a slaveowner. One of the top contenders for the new name is Barack and Michelle Obama Middle School. However, on Thursday, many Latino residents expressed their disappointment at the possibility and protested outside of a school board meeting.
Julie Contreras told ABC 7 Chicago that Obama broke promises to the immigrant community. “From the time Barack Obama became president until 2017 when he left, he today is still the highest-ranking president with deportations in our nation,” she said. “We feel that Barack Obama did [a] disservice to us,” she continued.
Contreras, who works with an organization that gives shelter to undocumented children at the U.S./Mexico border, later called the former president an “oppressor” and likened him to Thomas Jefferson.
School board president, Brandon Ewing, said he has no objections to the name but is aware of the concerns of his city’s residents.
On social media, the news of the protests reawakened mentions of Latino anti-Blackness.
This is another example of the “undocumented” (aka illegal immigrant) community bringing their racist anti black hypocrisy to America and expecting it to fly?
— MediaMild (@mediamild) April 1, 2021
According to the Migration Policy Institute, Contreras was incorrect in her statements. Obama oversaw the least deportations of his predecessors, Clinton and Bush. Although the sentiment may be valid, the facts do not support it.
Obama was also the president that made a way for individuals brought to the United States as children to remain in the United States as adults for a renewable two-year period and gain eligibility for a work permit without the threat of deportation. That program is known as DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Additionally, the Obama administration attempted to extend that courtesy to the immigrant parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders but a string of federal lawsuits stopped its advancement.
It’s also important to note that although Contreras decided to center white and Indigenous Latinos, the majority of immigrants facing deportation and denial of entry to the United States are Haitians.
According to Raices Texas, 44% of the Black Caribbean islanders are being held in ICE detention centers compared to roughly 37% Latinos, including people from Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras and Ecuador.
“There have been a few horrified headlines, but one specific aspect of family detention in 2020 has been greatly underreported: almost half of the families currently locked up by ICE are Haitian,” the site reported
Even under the new administration, President Joe Biden has disproportionately deported more Haitians since taking office in January than former President Trump did in one year.
“More Haitians have been removed to Haiti in the weeks since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office than during all of fiscal year 2020,” according to the Invisible Wall report, published by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the Quixote Center, and the UndocuBlack Network.
In other words, Contreras is loud and wrong.
A decision on renaming the school has not yet been made.
