Telling ICE to Go Home

Hundreds of people came out in the early morning darkness on Thursday, October 23, to block Coast Guard Island where agents arrived to use it as a base for immigration raids. The picket line moved slowly through the intersection. As the crowd grew larger, Border Patrol agents came out to break the line. They used anti-personnel weapons, including flash-bang grenades and smoke bombs, against the protesters who were unarmed. As Rev. Jorge Bautista of College Heights United Church of Christ in San Mateo stood in the crosswalk, hands at his side, an agent fired a pepper spray gun into his face. The day ended with a march to the immigration courts, where numerous people had been seized by Federal agents. No charges have yet been filed against the Border Patrol agent who fired his weapon at Rev. Bautista, and his identity is not known.

David Bacon

David Bacon is a photographer based in Oakland and Berkeley, California.  He is the author of several books about migration: The Children of NAFTA (University of California Press, 2004), Communities Without Borders (ILR/Cornell University Press, 2006), Illegal People – How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008), and The Right to Stay Home (Beacon Press, 2013).  His latest book of photographs and interviews with farm workers, In the Fields of the North, will be published in December by the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

David Bacon was a factory worker and union organizer for two decades with the United Farm Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers, and other unions. Today he documents the changing conditions in the workforce, the impact of the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights.

David Bacon's photography has been exhibited widely in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe, including at the Oakland Museum of California; University of California in Berkeley, Merced and Los Angeles; the National Civil Rights Museum; DeSaisset Museum; Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography; Queens College; the Church Center of the United Nations; the Museum of Mexico City; the National Autonomous University of Mexico; IG Metall Galerie in Frankfurt; Galerie Unterhaus in Passau; and KulturAXE in Vienna.

His articles and photoessays have been published in Afterimage, Al Jazeera America, The Nation, The Progressive, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Contexts and Gastronomica among other media. His photography and journalism have received the Max Steinbock Award, Project Censored Award, Los Angeles Press Club Award, the East Bay Press Association Award, New America Media Award, and the Domingo Ulloa Cultural Award.  As a photojournalist, David Bacon has been documenting through photographs and stories the lives of farm workers since 1988. His work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, The California Endowment, and the California Council for the Humanities.