Thread: Immigrant Activist: I Was Deported For My Hunger Strike And I'm Coming Back

Immigrant Activist: I Was Deported For My Hunger Strike And I'm Coming Back

Posted: 04/01/2014 4:54 pm EDT Updated: 04/01/2014 4:59 pm EDT

Two undocumented immigrants who say they were expelled from the United States in retaliation for their activism are crossing back into the country through the legal port of entry at Nogales, Ariz., this week, hoping to fight their deportation cases through the legal system.

The demonstration is the latest in a growing trend in which people who once lived in the United States as undocumented immigrants return to the country through legal ports of entry, where they openly declare their status in an attempt to gain residence through legal channels.

"I have faith that the president will hear us and let us enter," Jaime Valdez, one of the returning immigrants, told The Huffington Post.
Activists livestreamed the first crossing Tuesday, chanting "bring Jaime home" as Valdez approached the gate to pass from Mexico to the United States. He plans to apply for humanitarian parole, an exemption that allows inadmissible immigrants to enter the country for humanitarian reasons.

Valdez, 31, was born in Michoacán, Mexico, and moved to the United States with his family when he was 14 years old. They made their home in Phoenix, where Valdez worked in restaurants and fixed computers in his spare time.

He was deported on Feb. 25 as he was taking part in a hunger strike organized by families with relatives locked up in Eloy Detention Center. Valdez said authorities at Eloy, which is owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, put him in solitary confinement for participating in the demonstration.

"My deportation was retaliation for the hunger strike," Valdez told HuffPost.

In a statement after the deportation on Feb. 25, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was "committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses on its priorities, including convicted criminals and those apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States."

Valdez had appealed his deportation order to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied his request for a stay of removal. He has two DUI convictions on his record, one from when he was in his early twenties and one from 2011. He says his lawyer convinced him to plead guilty to the latter DUI charge. "Because I was misrepresented, I've been paying for it ever since," Valdez said.
Valdez's deportation hit his family hard. His father, José, says he has lost three sons to deportation. His second-oldest son, Luis Felipe, was killed while being robbed after he was deported last year, José Valdez told HuffPost when Jaime was deported in February.

"I don't want to have the same fate as my brother," Jaime said.

Ardani Rosales, the second of this week's immigrants to re-enter the U.S. at Nogales, will cross the border on Wednesday. He was deported to Guatemala in December while activists and family members held a vigil for him outside the Florence Service Processing Center, an immigrant detention center about an hour's drive southeast of Phoenix. He has two children who are U.S. citizens.

"Why is ICE deporting people who are just here to work and have a family?" Rosales' fiancée, Naira Zapata, said in a statement. "Why are they doing this to so many families and why did they do it to mine?"

President Barack Obama ordered a review of his administration's deportation policies last month amid growing criticism from immigrant activists, Latino voters and Democratic allies over his record-breaking pace of deportations. His administration has deported approximately 2 million undocumented immigrants.
"We're going to keep fighting so that they stop deportations, against all this injustice happening, so that President Obama listens to us," said Valdez.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5071753.html

Right to Return: Deported After Protest by His Family, Mexican Immigrant to Attempt U.S. Re-entry

Jaime Valdez, was deported from Arizona to Mexico in February. Today he will be presenting himself at the border checkpoint at Nogales, Mexico, requesting that his case be reopened and that he be granted humanitarian parole. He is a member of Puente-Arizona.

After being deported to Mexico from his home in Arizona earlier this year, Jaime Valdez joins us to detail his attempt today to re-enter the United States. Valdez says he was deported in retaliation for a hunger strike that his family took part in at the Phoenix offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to protest U.S. immigration policies. "All my family is in the U.S., so that’s why I’m trying to come back," Valdez says. "We’re going to try to get this message to the president, to stop the deportations and to stop the discrimination and injustice in detention centers." He and another immigrant hope to rejoin their families today by crossing at a checkpoint in the Mexican border town of Nogales, where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is currently on a three-day tour visiting with Border Patrol agents and migrants.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, as we turn to our last segment today. Renée?

RENÉE FELTZ: Thanks, Amy. We end today’s show in Mexico, where two immigrants deported in February will try to re-enter the United States today. They say their deportation came in retaliation for a hunger strike their families participated in outside the Phoenix offices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, or ICE. They’re going to try to re-enter at a checkpoint in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, which is where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are on a three-day tour today visiting with Border Patrol agents and migrants. Later today, Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston will join them in a hike through part of the nearby desert where undocumented immigrants are known to pass.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Nogales, Mexico, where Jaime Valdez joins us via Democracy Now! video stream, one of the immigrants who will attempt to re-enter the U.S. today at 11:00 local time in Arizona in order to request his case to be reopened, that he be granted humanitarian parole.
Jaime Valdez, welcome to Democracy Now! We just have a few minutes. How did you end up south of the border when you really—what? You lived in—you grew up in Phoenix?

JAIME VALDEZ: My family with all—and other families were part of a demonstration with Puente, which was a hunger strike outside the ICE offices in Phoenix. We were doing our part within the detention center in Eloy, Arizona. And because that demonstration, they put me in solitary. And after that, because of that, they deported me.

AMY GOODMAN: Already detained—Jaime, you were already detained. Your family was outsideICE. They were on hunger strike. So they retaliated—the authorities retaliated against you, who was in detention?

JAIME VALDEZ: Yes, yeah, that’s what happened.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/1...deported_after

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http://www.alipac.us/f12/deportees-s...parole-300363/

"Why is ICE deporting people who are just here to work and have a family?" Rosales' fiancée, Naira Zapata, said in a statement. "Why are they doing this to so many families and why did they do it to mine?"

Just here to work and have a family? How about the millions of citizens who are un-employed and need to work? These people have to stop with this attitude of innocence! They also need to stop with the tired and old blame game. WE are NOT doing anything to their families! They are doing it to themselves!!!!

If you don't want your family separated, don't waltz into another Country illegally expecting them to take care of you! These are not stupid people, they know full well that if they come here illegally, they risk deportation and the separation of their families. Most illegals want sympathy and play that innocence game. When they get here, they screw the system left and right and leave tax payers to pay for all their needs being met when they can barely afford to survive themselves!