The Sanctuary Speaks Out Against Verdict in Luis Ramirez Case

From the Editorial Board of The Sanctuary comes not only a condemnation of a miscarriage of justice ... but a call for substantive change.

The Luis Ramirez Murder: A Logical Step in the Process of Establishing a Subhuman Class

Three things immediately shock the conscious soul upon learning about the murder of Luis Ramirez. The simple manner in which he died is the first of those.

Ramirez, a father of three, was beaten to death in the streets of Pennsylvania by as many as seven young men who were at the end of a night of drinking. The motive? Judging by the slurs heaped upon him along with the many blows to his body: apparently nothing more than being out at night while Mexican. The teens who ganged up on Ramirez came upon him walking with a young woman, reportedly his girlfriend’s sister. Obviously bringing threat, they asked him what he was doing out at that time of day. Then they set upon him. In the end it was a final hard kick to the skull which left the 25-year-old father convulsing on the concrete with fatal brain damage.

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The murder of Luis Ramirez—like the murders of Marcelo Lucero and Wilter Sanchez and Jose Sucuhañay—are but logical steps in the process of defining a subhuman class of ALIEN and inciting anti-Latino violence, which will continue unless marked changes are made in our society. Changes in the immigration dialogue. Changes in the way pundits frame and discuss the issue. Perhaps even more importantly, changes to the fashion in which both Republicans and Democrats pitch and move legislation. The entire “Enforcement Agenda” that directly links immigration status (and thus all Latinos) to criminality, discussed coolly by seemingly rational voices on both Right and Left, is but the socially and politically acceptable umbrella which shields crimes like the murder of Luis Ramirez. The ubiquitous message resonating from coast to coast of this continent, across which peoples of Latin American descent have been migrating back and forth for thousands of years, is that we are in the crosshairs. And that we deserve to be in those hair-trigger sights.

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Continuing to reinforce and advocate for the image of a permanent criminal and essentially subhuman class of people by maintaining Immigrations Customs and Enforcement (ICE) in its current form; the raids that rake psychological gashes into entire communities, the booming detention center industry, stopgap measures like 287g, virulently anti-Spanish language and anti-Mexican rhetoric blasted out over acceptable media outlets, as well as continuing to build up a heavily militarized border—this can end in nothing but more violence against and deaths of Latinos/as in the US, and on a growing scale.


Read complete statement from The Sanctuary