15 Protesters arrested in front of Chicago immigration office

Published December 07, 2010
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Chicago – Fifteen people were arrested Monday in an act of civil disobedience at the Chicago offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including a 7-months-pregnant woman and an activist in a wheelchair.

"We want a Christmas without fear that lets juvenile citizens celebrate without armed men breaking up their families," Tanya Lozano of the Familia Unida (United Family) movement said.

Lozano, Chicago Alderman Daniel Solis and a group of clergy and activists blocked the main entrance to the building housing the ICE offices for 30 minutes, until they were arrested by federal agents.

After the shouts, shoving and tears, all those arrested for demanding an end to the deportation of undocumented aliens were handcuffed and taken inside the building.

Those in custody were freed two hours later after paying a fine of $175 per person and being notified of a court hearing in February.

"President (Barack) Obama can keep his promises and declare a moratorium on deportations with the stroke of a pen," Emma Lozano, director of Chicago's Centro Sin Fronteras (Center Without Borders), said.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) did not take part in the protest as had been announced, though at a press conference an hour before he gave his backing for a request on behalf of the undocumented wife of a Hispanic soldier.

The request was for a humanitarian visa allowing Army National Guard Spc. Hector Nuñez's wife to return to Chicago from Mexico with the couple's ailing child.

Gutierrez told of the case of Rosa Nuñez, who was called for a personal interview by the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, last June to finalize procedures for her permanent residency, and there they told her she could not return to the United States for another 10 years.

Rosa Nuñez is being penalized for having illegally entered the United States on two occasions as a child, when she accompanied her parents, the congressman said.

Spc. Nuñez, 26, is the son of Mexicans born and raised in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines. He served in Kuwait in 2007 and will soon be posted to Afghanistan.

"My wife has lived in the shadows as an undocumented alien almost all her life, but even so she studied and wanted to legalize her immigration status to become a radiologist," the soldier said.

"Someone has to help us wake up from this nightmare, because my family in Mexico is suffering more than I will on the battlefield," he said.

According to Nuñez, he is worried about the violence going on in Mexico and the lack of medical care for son Jason.

"In the consulate in Ciudad Juarez they didn't let us speak, they already had the documentation ready and then they told my wife she was barred from returning for 10 years," he said.

Gutierrez said that Obama "knows very well the suffering of the Nuñez family" because he has personally given them thousands of petitions from citizens demanding an end to deportations.

"This administration is very proud of its deportations, with more people than ever expelled from the country, and not all of them criminals," Gutierrez said.

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