Some of the 200+ Nurses in the Front Yard of Maine Medical Center Protesting the Illegal and Inhumane Detention by ICE Thugs of RN Debora Kapisha This Morning.

Remember Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, 25, Who Was Shot and Killed by ICE in Biddeford Last Month. . He left Behind a Widow and Three Year Old Daughter. Some Say that His Killer Had Emotional Problems that Should Have Exempted him From Ever Working in “Law Enforceent.”

Another Message from This Morning’s Emergency Protest on the Western Promenade of Portland.

One of the Many Expressive Signs at This Morning’s Emergency Protest Over ICE’s Detention of Registered Nurse Debora Kapisha.

Hundreds of union registered nurses, community allies and elected officials rallied in Portland today demanding the release of Debora Kapisha, RN, a nurse at Maine Medical Center (MMC) who is currently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).   They scored a major first victory by successfully blocking her transfer from Massachusetts to Louisiana, where she would have been far from her famllly, legal counsel and support network.

Nurses at Maine Med are represented by Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (MSNA/NNOC), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), the country’s largest nurses union.

Ms. Kapisha now has a bond hearing set for Monday, August 10.  Nurses have already written Ms. Kapisha more than 100 letters of support, continue to demand her release from ICE custody and are calling on MMC to sponsor her for permanent residency according to a press release received from MSNA early this evening.

“I know firsthand the character she is and the kindness she brings to those around her,” Abigail Nelson, RN said of Kapisha at the August 5 protest on the Western Promenade in Portland.  ‘Nurses like her are not easy to replace and the patients, our community, we’re all feeling her loss.”

Ms. Kapisha is a medical-surgical nurse at Maine Med who is legally auhorized to live and work in the country while she waits for her asylum case from Zambia to be processed.  On July 30, ICE detained Ms Kapisha while she was traveling through Boston Logan International Airport.  Her union is coordinatding with her attorneys for her release and demanding her employer sponsor her permanent residency.

Since ICE began kidnapping Black and brown people and terrozing our communities, National Nurses United has called it out as an illegitimate, violent, paramilitary organization that must be promptly abolished.  On top of people that immigrant enforcement officers have shot and killed in the streets, such as Johan Sebastian Guerrero, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, VA RN Ale Pretti and Renee Good, at least 52 people have died within the immigration detention system during Trump’s second term mainly due to withholding of adequate medial care, according to Human Rights Watcn.