QNS.com: Queens senator who helped reunite an immigrant mother with her children says ICE should be abolished

July 11, 2018

Originally published in QNS.com | The Queens Courier

In addition to calling ICE a rogue agency, Gianaris said that it’s under the direction of a “rogue president.”

“Both must be stopped before more havoc is wreaked on people seeking a better life in our country,” Gianaris said. “We must abolish ICE and then abolish Donald Trump at the ballot box as soon as possible.”

Gianaris was the first person to officially welcome Gonzalez to New York after a constituent from Long Island City, Julie Collazo, organized a volunteer group to bring Gonzalez to her children. Collazo and the rest of the volunteers raised more than $50,000 on a GoFundMe account, bonded Gonzalez out of the detention center where she was being held and drove across the country to reunite her with her children.

When QNS spoke to Gianaris on June 10 about his experience with Gonzalez, the lawmaker said that the distressed mother’s will to be reunited with her family and share their story was “very powerful.”

“She was tired and beaten down with everything she had been through,” Gianaris said. “I was impressed with her strength and resolve to not only do what is necessary to get back with her children, but tell her story so all mothers in detention can have theirs told as well.”