Fifteen immigration activists arrested in Atlanta protesting U.S. deportation policy

Posted by Joeff Davis @joeffly on Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 12:11 PM


  • JOEFF DAVIS
  • Three protesters sit at the entrance Immigration and Custom Enforcement Field Office on Spring Street.


Fifteen protesters, including some undocumented Georgians, were arrested yesterday morning protesting the United States' immigration deportation policy outside the Immigration and Custom Enforcement Field Office on Spring Street near Downtown. Most of the arrested protesters chained themselves to the gate at the entrance of the ICE facility.

The protest was organized by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Project South, Southerners of New Ground, and the National Day Laborers organizing Network. According to B. Loewe of the National Day Laborers organizing Network, the protest was directed at President Barack Obama.


"We are asking the president to stop deportations," he said.


According to an August 2012 report by Politifact
, the Obama administration has conducted an average of 32,000 deportations per month - more than previous presidents. According to the report, Obama's predecessor George W. Bush oversaw an average of nearly 21,000 deportations per month. Bill Clinton averaged approximately 9,000 deportations per month. The Obama administration's high numbers come at a time when overall illegal immigration has fallen, Politifact said.


  • JOEFF DAVIS
  • Protester Caitlin Breedlove is dragged off and arrested by police.


"We are also asking President Obama to expand the relief that he has given the Dreamers to the rest of the the immigrant community," said B. Loewe.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program allowed undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children by their parents and who met several specific requirements to be eligible for "deferred action." They would be given two years in which they could stay in the U.S. without the threat of deportation.


Throughout the morning, chants of "undocumented and unafraid" could be heard in the crowd of protesters outside the gates.


Antonia Lozano of Fairburn was one of the people who chained themselves to the gate and was arrested. Speaking through a translator, she told CL this morning that she was released from jail last night. She has been in the U.S. for 15 years and lived in Georgia for the last four years. She said that she came to the country to look for a better life.

She and her children are undocumented. Her son was recently arrested and threatened with deportation.


"More then anything, I was doing it for my family and for my people," Lozano said when asked why she protested and risked arrest. "We are saying 'enough is enough, not one more deportation.'"


Lozono says her message for Obama would be that the president should "think about our children."


"If someone came to take away his children," she said, "what would he do?"


http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/...rtation-policy