ICE Threatens Deportation of Seven Undocumented Youth Arrested at Protest
IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES THREATEN THE 7 UNDOCUMENTED YOUTH WITH DEPORTATION
Pasadena, CA – Earlier this morning the seven undocumented youth arrested at a sit-in near the San Bernardino Valley College yesterday were all released. The seven rallied earlier in the day asking local police to stop cooperating with ICE programs. Jonathan Perez, one of the youth arrested stated: “We are coming out of the shadows to protest programs that target undocumented people, programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities. Local police should not be enforcing or collaborating with ICE, it creates a mistrust in the community and it needs to stop right now.” After sharing their testimonies the youth staged a sit-in, with over 200 supporters surrounding them, the 7 youth were arrested.
“We spent much of the night in booking, at one point ICE came in and interviewed us. We thought we were going to get detained like most undocumented people who go through these jails, however we were not detained for some reason,” said Martha Vazquez, 22. ICE authorities threatened they may still get involved.
Ju Hong, 21, one of the seven, risked arrest in an effort to empower his community, “I took action because I want to encourage all Asian American undocumented youth to come out of shadows and fight. In this critical time, we must stand united and continue to take a risk in order to push for the fair and humane immigration reform to our community.” More about his story, a senator elect to the Cal Berkley Associated Students is in the Daily Californian.
Two of these students, Jonathan Perez and Martha Vasquez, was part of the delegation that went to California Senator Ron Calderon's office on July 6th, 2011 to talk about the concerns we all have about enforcement without any concern for a path to normalized immigration status. I posted about that experience here. Another DREAMer that I met in Pasadena a while back, Isaac Barrera was arrested. I am using his photo below.
More information about the action at San Bernardino Community College is in the Redlands Daily here.
Some of the students are holding a press conference announcing future plans of arrested youth at Pasadena Community College on July 14, 2001 at 12 noon in front of campus by the fountain.
Information from this story was found in the news articles that are linked above and from a press release from the San Gabriel Valley DREAM Team.
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