DETAINED in Arizona: Four Student Immigrant Leaders

[proud2BlibKansan]

<skip>

Tucson, Arizona. May 17th, on the anniversary of landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, Arizona law enforcement arrested four undocumented leaders of the immigrant student movement in addition to Arizona native Raul Alcaraz. Lizbeth Mateo of Los Angeles, California; Tania Unzueta of Chicago, Illinois; Mohammad Abdollahi of Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Yahaira Carrillo of Kansas City, Missouri; were detained Tucson, Arizona, after staging a sit-in at Senator John McCain’s office. With this challenge to local and federal law, these youth hope to highlight the urgency of legislative action in Congress, and catalyze mass grassroots mobilization to pass the DREAM Act before June 15th.

These four leaders are risking deportation from the United States in the hope that this action will make a significant contribution to the fight for immigrant rights. In response to the onslaught of enforcement-based immigration law, they staged a sit-in at Senator McCain’s office, and urged congressional leadership to champion the DREAM Act and the values it represents: hard work, education, and fairness.

Lizbeth, 25, an organizer with DREAM Team Los Angeles, states, “There are already ten other states across the country considering immigration legislation similar to Arizona’s: legislation that is anti-family, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom. Police states and enforcement are quickly becoming the standard, and we are running out of time. We are going to pass the DREAM Act because it is based on freedom and equality.”

Mohammad, 24, co-founder of DreamActivist.Org, a resource web portal for undocumented students, said in a statement: “Never in our history has it been American to deny people their civil rights. We have decided to peacefully resist to encourage our leaders to pass the DREAM Act and create a new standard for immigration reform based on education, hard work, equality, and fairness.”

At least 65,000 undocumented immigrant youth graduate from high schools every year, and many of them struggle to attend institutes of higher education and the military. The DREAM Act will grant youth who traveled to the United States before the age of 16 a path to citizenship contingent on continuous presence in the country, good behavior, and the attainment of at least a two-year university degree or a two-year commitment to the armed forces.

more . . . http://www.thedreamiscoming.com/2010/05/17/detained-in-arizona-four-student-immigrant-leaders/

Monday, May 17, 2010
Yahaira Carrillo

My name is Yahaira Carrillo, and I am an undocumented immigrant.
I didn’t know what were doing, where we were going or why I had to crawl under a fence, but I did.. It was southern California, 1993, and I was eight years old; my mother and I were going to reunite with my father.
I was <...>

Continue reading...http://www.thedreamiscoming.com/2010/05/17/yahaira-carrillo/


Tania Unzueta
Monday, May 17, 2010
Tania Unzueta

My name is Tania Unzueta and I am an undocumented immigrant.
I have lived in Chicago since I was 10 years old. I came with my mother to join my father, who had found a stable job and a promise to legalize his status. Eventually our tourist visas ran out, and my family became undocumented.
For years <...>

Continue reading...http://www.thedreamiscoming.com/2010/05/17/tania-unzueta/

[aquart]

1. God protect them since we won't.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Amen

[depakid]

2. Hope they have living arrangements lined up in Mexico

While I sympathize with their situations, it's not a good idea to thumb one's nose at authorities unless you're prepared to deal with the consequences.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Let's hope their cause gets the attention it deserves

[depakid]

7. Hope so too- though I suspect they'll end up on a lower tier in terms of priority than the DADT

folks have been.

That said, as EFarrari notes- courage like this in the face of all that's going on with the loudmouthed cowardly bigots (and their corporate media allies) is very impressive.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Check out their website

These are very impressive young people.

[EFerrari]

9. They are. Yesterday, I found out both Mom and I get their mail

and our networks are completely different. We shouldn't deport these kids, we should recruit them!

;)

[Lance_Boyle]

14. It already did - they're being deported. n/t

[EFerrari]

5. That's about as much courage as I've seen from anyone in a very long time.

I hope this was well planned.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Me too

[MidwestRick]

10. If they are here illegally...

they should be deported.

Nothing to do with their race, but their documentation status.

-MR

[sabrina 1]

11. People whose parents brought them here when they were children

and had no say in the decision, should be treated differently. It is cruel to uproot people who have lived somewhere since childhood.

But then you have just expressed the typical rightwing refusal to differentiate between children and adults.

This attitude is why we are the only country that tries children as adults (even Saudy Arabia has abandoned that idea), puts to death people whose crimes were committed as minors and are now, with the approval of this Democratic President, about to continue the Bush policy of using a Military Tribunal to put on trial a tortured child soldier, which btw, is against every international law including our own.

We throw teenagers in jail with hardened criminals and our jails are a human rights abomination, not to mention ICE detention centers where people have been killed, simply because they 'didn't have papers'.

Laws need to be passed that cover those who came here as children, They should be given legal status and we should stop this hard-line attitude towards every single issue in this country even when it comes to the most innocent.

[blondeatlast]

15. +a zillion. I've seen the results of this up close. Kids the age of my son (13). It's heartless and

sickening--and I literally have seen it happen.

Heartbreaking--those were my own kid's friends. :mad:

[sabrina 1]

22. It's sad that so many spout off the 'law' as if laws cannot be

bad, and do not think of the toll on human beings, on people. It's as if they are talking about a commodity.

I am really sorry about your son's friends, it IS heartless to do what we are doing to many of these people.

There are humane solutions to the problem of immigration. Maybe we could start by discontinuing support for governments that are corrupt who drive their people to desperation. And start recognizing that the immigration problem escalated after NAFTA went into effect and start taking some responsibility for the role the U.S. has played in the lack of jobs in Mexico and other poor countries. Countries whose resources we USE without thinking.

We are like spoiled brats. We have ours, even if we took it without benefit to those who owned it, and that's all that matters to some people. No thought goes into these statements 'it's the LAW'. It just seems to make people feel good to pass judgement on others less fortunate.

[Maru Kitteh]

13. So Rick, how often do you find yourself standing with the teabaggers?

[WolverineDG]

16. Yeah, let's show absolutely no compassion to people who were brought here as children

some as infants, who only want to go to school & get a job. How *dare* they!

dg

[MidwestRick]

18. And as adults

they continue to lie about their immigration status (at least to get accepted to the colleges they are attending).

-MR

[Goblinmonger]

19. It is time we change those policies because they are stupid.

These people are not hurting our economy and we have these laws primarily for xenophobia. And, yes, if I ruled the world, I'd just open the border.

[WolverineDG]

20. No they don't nt

[Spoonman]

21. Órale vato!

Stand behind me Rick I will use my Mexican-American (1st generation) ass to shield you from the "racist" accusations!

If they want to blame and or bitch at someone for their illegal status, tell them to call their parents!

[southern_belle]

12. Oh no!

I hope they are not water-boarded - I would say "Just kidding", but with the way the right thinks, I just don't know - Only half-kidding!

[UndertheOcean]

17. Kick ! n/t

[UndertheOcean]

23. And the undocumented Aliens Civil rights movement begins , ofcourse they have to convince many on DU

that they are not subhuman due to minor differences in skin colour , language or place of birth.