“The separation of families is taking place both at the border and in our communities in California,” said Reverend Deborah Lee, Executive Director of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. “Refugees who came to this country seeking peace are being torn from their families by an immigration system that refuses to recognize their humanity. California should take action now to stop the deportations through pardoning these refugees.”
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Rev. Deborah Lee, director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, and the central organizer of the vigils, said the faith groups involved had to examine their conscience. “The transfer of many detainees instead of their release was hard to swallow at first, and many families felt helpless,” she said. “We asked ourselves if we were responsible for their transfer, as ICE accused us. But the families reminded us that ICE moves detainees all the time, and often they don’t know where their own family members are.”
Read Capital & Main’s full 9/12/2018 article by David Bacon here.
RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) — A San Francisco Bay Area teen is hoping her immigrant father is released from a detention center in time for her upcoming birthday and held an unusual protest to draw attention to his case.
Alexa Lopez on Saturday had a coming-of-age party known as a quinceanera outside a detention facility in Richmond where her father, Raul Lopez, is being held.
Raul Lopez came from Guatemala to the U.S. in 1989 and was in the country illegally. His wife, Dianeth Lopez, says her husband had been reporting to immigration officials regularly before he was taken into custody in March 2017. Read more.