TMRW, June 27 @ 12 PM: Presser Demanding FBI Charges on Activist Alejandro Orellana be Dropped and Deportations and ICE Raids End
joe iosbaker
For Immediate Release: June 26, 2025
Press Conference Demanding, “Drop the Charges on Alejandro Orellana; Stop Deportations and ICE Raids”
Who: The Committee to Stop FBI Repression, The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression Immigrants’ Rights Working Committee, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), Casa DuPage Workers Center, Mientras Haya Amor Hay Esperanza, US Palestinian Community Network, Organized Communities Against Deportation, and 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez
What: Press conference to demand federal charges against Alejandro Orellana be dropped. Orellana was arrested on June 12 in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles after a June 9 protest against ICE raids on undocumented immigrants.
When: Friday, June 27 @ 12 PM noon
Where: Federal Plaza, 219 S Dearborn, Chicago IL
On June 12, the home of immigrants’ rights activist and leader in Centro Community Service Organization (Centro CSO) of East Los Angeles Alejandro Orrellana was raided by the FBI in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles following his participation in protests against ICE. FBI agents seized his electronic property, arrested him, and took him into federal custody. It took a press conference and protest before he was released the next day. He is now facing the charge of one count of conspiracy to commit civil disorder, which carries up to five years in prison.
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression is calling on organizations across the US to join a national day of action on June 27 to demand that the charges be dropped at once. Organizations, national and local, are releasing statements of support for Alejandro Orellana and supporters will call into the US attorney’s office to voice this demand. On June 27, Alejandro Orellana will have his preliminary hearing and first court appearance in Los Angeles, CA.
“Orellana has done nothing wrong!” said Joe Iosbaker of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. “Protesting ICE raids and deportations is not a crime!”
Orellana has been a leading member of Centro CSO for over 10 years. He has been public and forthright in organizing against ICE raids and the Trump administrations. His activism and visible resistance to Trump and ICE serves as a model and inspiration for us all.
It is for this reason and no other that he is being targeted. To protect our First Amendment rights, our freedom of speech, and our right to say no to the ICE operations and the Trump administration, we believe it is critical to defend Alejandro Orellana.
You can read more about Orellana’s case on www.stopfbi.org
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The Committee to Stop FBI Repression are a group of people who came together in response to the FBI raids on seven homes and an anti-war office on Friday, September 24, 2010. The FBI also handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to fourteen activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. These activists are involved in many groups, including the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. These activists and many others came together to organize the 2008 anti-war marches during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. In December, 2010, 9 Palestine solidarity activists in Chicago were also subpoenaed.
Across the country organizations and individuals stood together to protest the United States government’s attempt to silence and criminalize anti-war and international solidarity activists.
Raids and subpoenas are an attack on anti-war and other progressive movements. It is an attack on our freedom to speak, our freedom to assemble with like-minded people, and our freedom to tell the government that their actions and policies are wrong.
We fought every case and resisted every grand jury subpoena and today we are on the streets continuing our resistance to police terror and demanding Justice for George Floyd, all victims and survivors of police crimes and in a myriad of movements. We are still there because we resisted and organized others to support that resistance.