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California labor leader David Huerta, 58, was released from federal custody on Monday on a $50,000 bond after being charged with “conspiracy to impede an officer.”
Huerta, the president of Service Employees International Union California (SEIU), was arrested during an anti-ICE protest in Los Angeles on Friday.
Huerta was photographed wearing socks and carrying shoes following his release from custody. He told reporters he did not intend to get arrested, and the only way to win change is through nonviolence.
“This fight is ours, it’s our community’s, but it belongs to everyone,” Huerta said in Spanish, according to the Associated Press. “We all have to fight for them.”
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Huerta was arrested while law enforcement officers were executing a federal search warrant at a Los Angeles business suspected of hiring illegal immigrants and falsifying employment papers, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote in a federal court filing obtained by the AP.
SEIU represents 750,000 members in 17 local unions across 58 counties, according to its website. Among the members are “nurses, healthcare workers, janitors, social workers, security officers, in-home caregivers, school and university employees, court workers, and city, county and state employees.”
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While SEIU International President April Verrett said on Monday that the labor union is “relieved” that Huerta is free, she added his arrest only drew attention to a larger issue.
“Thousands of workers remain unjustly detained and separated from their families. At this very moment, immigrant communities are being terrorized by heavily militarized armed forces. The Trump regime calling in the National Guard is a dangerous escalation to target people who disagree with them. It is a threat to our democracy. The federal government should never be used as a weapon against people who disagree with them,” she said in a statement.
“America is a nation of immigrants. Immigrant workers are essential to our society: feeding our nation, caring for our elders, cleaning our workplaces, and building our homes,” Verrett added. “Immigrants are scientists, they are teachers and professors. They are our co-workers, neighbors and family members. They deserve our respect and they need their constitutional rights respected.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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