East Portland Councilors Avalos, Dunphy, Smith Respond to the ICE Shooting of Two People in Hazelwood

Portland, OR - District 1 Councilors Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy, and Loretta Smith issued the following statement in response to the news that federal agents shot and injured two people in the Hazelwood neighborhood:

Today ICE shot two of our East Portland neighbors - just one day after an ICE agent shot and killed a Minneapolis mother. We are still waiting for more information at this time, but this is part of a pattern of violence that we have seen too many times across our country.

ICE in our communities does not make us safe. It should be crystal clear to everyone that the real threat to community safety is the ICE agents harassing, targeting, detaining - and in some tragic cases - killing our neighbors. This violence is unacceptable, it is criminal, and it is against the constitution of the United States.

This federal government is going to spin the story like they do every time one of their agents hurts a community member. We saw that when they tried to send in the National Guard. It's on all of us to keep speaking the truth, to keep on bearing witness, because our community's voices outweigh their lies every time. It's up to each and every one of us to keep us safe.

As your East Portland councilors, we have stood united to protect Portlanders from aggressive immigration enforcement and federal overreach and we will continue to do everything in our power to keep our communities safe. We are asking our counterparts at every level of government to do the same.

We thank our first responders for their swift response. We're holding the two victims and their families in our hearts at this time and our offices will provide more information when it is available.