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On the night of May Day, we attacked the office of BI Incorporated in Gunbarrel, Colorado. Phrases such as “¡Chinga La Migra!” “Abolish ICE” and “Fuck Your Shackles” were written with spray paint at the entrance of the building. “Profiteers of white supremacist violence” was painted on one wall. “Fuck ICE” was written on the BI sign facing the roadway, and rocks were thrown through the glass panels on the main entrance doors.
BI Inc. is a company owned by the private prison company The GEO Group, which runs the migrant concentration camp in Aurora. The company manufacturers the GPS ankle monitors that GEO and ICE use to surveil the movements of migrants who live outside of their camps, and to subsequently incarcerate them if they move too freely.
BI’s ankle monitors are nothing more than high-tech shackles. BI originally manufactured cattle monitors, and now applies that technology to dehumanize people, earning hundreds of millions of dollars from ICE contracts in the process. BI also runs ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), which requires participants to check-in regularly at BI offices, where many have reported discrimination, harassment, humiliation, and assault by BI employees.
This is all unnecessary and deliberate cruelty. Borders are arbitrary creations used by the powerful to prevent international solidarity among the working class. They should not exist, and no one should be punished for crossing them, whether by incarceration in a physical building, or by being forced to wear a spying device.
Through our small act of defiance, we hope to demonstrate to our comrades that they too can take immediate action against the oppressive forces of capital and the state. We also hope to inspire the workers at BI to end their support for La Migra in solidarity with the global working class. Together we can work to erode the power of our country’s white supremacist policing apparatus. As long as it festers in our communities, we must fight it.
No more borders. No more shackles. No more “USA.” Freedom for all.
Jock Waldo, the President of BI Inc, is registered to vote as a Republican at 11192 Twin Spruce Rd. in Golden, CO.
Solidarity.