Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained two vendors for Real Change, the nonprofit and progressive newspaper said in a press release.
Real Change has not publicly released the names or any information about the vendors, but says both were “dedicated.” Real Change shared the vendors’ names and registration numbers with The Stranger. We used ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System to verify their detention at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
Most of Real Change’s self-employed vendors, who buy the paper for $0.60 and make a $1.40 profit from each $2 sale, are homeless or formerly homeless. Selling the paper on the street is a way for vendors, who often struggle to break into the wider job market, to make money.
In its press release, Real Change said many of the city’s most vulnerable people are undocumented immigrants who are working to survive “and lift themselves up out of poverty” through programs like theirs. It has asked the public to donate to its legal defense fund.
“This is not merely an unfortunate incident; it is a calculated act of cruelty and intimidation that goes against the very fabric of our mission and our city’s values,” said Krystal Marx, Executive Director of Real Change, in a press release. “Our vendors are not ‘others’—they are our neighbors, our colleagues, and the heart of this organization. To see them targeted and detained by a federal agency is an outrage that we will not stand for.”
In May, Donald Trump’s administration tripled ICE’s arrest quota and the agency started arresting more immigrants with no criminal history or criminal charges against them. In June, they accounted for more than half (53 percent) of the people ICE arrested in Washington, Oregon and Alaska, according to data from UC Berkeley School of Law’s Deportation Data Project.
It’s still unclear exactly why, when, and where ICE detained the Real Change vendors. The nonprofit said it is still trying to reach them and will release additional information about them under the “Advocacy” tab on its website.
