Thread: N.C. - Mother of ‘Dream 9’ youth lobbies for his release

Posted: Friday, Aug. 02, 2013
Mark Price
charlotteobserver.com

The mother of an undocumented immigrant youth being detained in Arizona staged an unsuccessful five-hour sit-in at U.S. Rep. Mel Watt’s office Friday as part of a campaign to reunite her family.

It marked the second time Norma Lopez of Marion staked out Watt’s office on Morehead Street, attempting to gain congressional support for the release of her son and eight other youths who’ve come to be known nationally as the Dream 9.

All nine youths, including Lopez’s 20-year-old son, Luis Gustavo Leon, “self-deported” to Mexico and tried to come back in July, in part to test the Obama administration’s pledge of a more compassionate approach to dealing with the foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants.

The Dream 9’s plight has earned national news coverage over the past two weeks, as different organizations have lobbied on their behalf around the country.

Lopez said the nine are being held at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, where Luis has been on a hunger strike the past week and a half. Some members of the group, including her son, are in solitary confinement, Lopez said.

Watt was in Washington on Friday, but Lopez sat in the Democrat’s office all afternoon, urging his staff to contact him.

She was escorted out after five and a half hours.

A similar six-hour wait on Wednesday also resulted in her being escorted out, she said.

‘The least I can do for my son’

Watt does not represent the Marion community in Congress, but Lopez said her hope is to get all the state’s congressional delegation to lobby the Obama administration on her son’s behalf.

“Six hours sitting in a chair is the least I can do for my son,” Lopez said Friday. “My son is in a cell, not eating and separated from the others. What I’m doing is comfortable compared to what he’s doing.”

Lopez came to the U.S. in 1998, with Luis and another son, Jair Leon Lopez. He waited with her Friday, along with a representative of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, an organization led by undocumented youths.

The group plans to return to Watt’s office next week.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/201...h-lobbies.html

She's waiting in Watt's office because her Rep is Republican Mark Meadows, and she knows she won't get any traction there! Watt is a Democrat.