Cincinnati City Council Update: June 2024
Protestors rally outside the Butler County Jail in Hamilton, OH on June 8th, 2024.
Our Immigrant Communities Deserve Better
On June 4, Cincinnati City Council released a report with more superficial ways the council could “support immigrant communities.” The report listed four actions for the council to take, none of which involved eliminating the entity actually threatening immigrant communities: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The first task is to create a “Know Your Rights” section on the City Council website and could quite literally be done in a few minutes by copying and pasting a pre-existing red card to the website. The second task is to essentially make a Linktree on the Council’s website for the Chamber of Commerce’s diversity program “Compass." This illustrates that the Council only sees immigrants for what they economically can add to the city. The third task is to establish an internal employee resource group for immigrant workers at City Council which will only serve to diminish actual revolutionary workplace organizing. The final task to is to document Cincinnati public schools’ anti-bullying policies and their process for reporting a hate crime which does nothing to prevent ICE from entering schools and abducting children. None of these frivolous and inconsequential platitudes help immigrant communities.
On May 29, the Council directed $1.5 million in Department of Justice (DOJ) funding to policing services, once again displaying that the council’s only vested interest remains in maintaining the fascist police state currently imprisoning Cincinnati residents. Marketed as a way to "improve differential responses," this funding further entrenches Cincinnati Police Department's (CPD) power under the guise of modernization. The funneling of federal money into expanded law enforcement capabilities instead of real community safety solutions like healthcare, housing, and unarmed crisis response is a consistent theme not only of the Cincinnati City Council but of local governments across the country. We oppose this continued investment in policing over people whether it arises in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, anywhere else in the state of Ohio, or the rest of the world.
Cincinnati lawmakers only have one priority: maintaining the capitalist order. This is obvious from the recent arrests in East Price Hill to Aftab's constant indecision on whether he's helping or hiding from ICE. The people of Cincinnati recognize this and are becoming increasingly agitated with the lack of consistency or any real form of help from their elected officials. Cincinnati Socialists demands that City Council stop aiding ICE, stop putting millions of dollars into its police force that already has one of the most overinflated budgets in the country, and put that money toward efforts that will actually address the root causes of the devastation and immiseration of the masses. The continually deteriorating material conditions plaguing the working and poor of our city can be improved, but only when the people of this city are represented by those who share their class interests. We need a city council made up of and in service to Cincinnati's poor and working classes alone!