18 arrested after activists sit down in front of Springfield DHS office to protest
18 arrested after activists sit down in front of Springfield DHS office to protest deportation of Lucio Perez
Updated on October 16, 2017 at 12:02 PM Posted on October 16, 2017 at 11:42 AM
Activists protesting deportation arrested for blocking front entrance to the Springfield DHS office
By Dan Glaun
dglaun@masslive.com
Springfield police arrested 18 activists Monday morning after protesters sat down and linked arms in front of the office building that houses the city's Department of Homeland Security branch in protest of the imminent deportation of city resident Lucio Perez.
The arrests followed a peaceful demonstration by about 120 people, who marched around the office building at 1550 Main St. and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to not deport Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant who entered the country illegally in 1999 and is the father of three U.S. citizens.
A Springfield police lieutenant at the scene said all would be charged with trespassing.
The demonstrators gathered in the courtyard in front of the building at 8 a.m. Rose Bookbinder, a Pioneer Valley Workers Center organizer, led the group in a call-and-response, chanting "Free Lucio! Justice for Lucio!."
"I want to ask that god bless you all. Thank you for being here. God will be a witness to what happens here today," Perez said through a translator. "I know that we're going to win, so onward."
Perez left Guatemala in 1999 to flee violence and seek economic opportunity, the Pioneer Valley Workers Center said in a press release. He married and had three children, who are U.S. citizens, and works as a landscaper.
In 2009, he and his wife were stopped by West Hartford police after they briefly left their children in the car to pick up drinks at a Dunkin' Donuts, his son Tony and Pioneer Valley Worker Center organizer Margaret Sawyer said at the rally. The child abandonment charges were quickly dropped, but the encounter put Perez on ICE's radar.
For the next eight years, Perez lived under an order of removal but was allowed to stay in the country as long as he regularly checked in with immigration authorities, under an Obama-era prioritization system that granted stays to many immigrants who had entered the U.S. illegally but did not otherwise have criminal records.
But President Donald Trump's administration ended that system, and in September Perez was told to buy a plane ticket to Guatemala for Oct. 19 and fitted with an ankle bracelet.
Perez' pending deportation has been hard on his family, his son Tony said.
"Especially me, I sit and wonder why my dad? Why my dad. He did a little small mistake - a mistake, yeah, but he didn't kill somebody, didn't murder anybody, right? He just did one simple mistake - left us in the car," he said. "Right now this little problem got into a big mess. It's really unfair for our father and us. We're praying to god for my father to stay."
An organizer told MassLive there is still no word on Perez' pending appeal of his deportation order.
The demonstrators marched around the building, stopping at points to speak, chant and sing. When they reached the front of the office, 18 protesters sat down and linked arms in front of the entrance. People continued to enter and leave the building, by either stepping over the line of protesters or walking through a gap they left to the door.
A row of Springfield police vehicles arrived, and a lieutenant huddled with a property manager and protest organizers. Bookbinder told MassLive police were seeking to end the demonstration without arrests, but that protesters decided to continue until they were placed into custody.
After about 40 minutes, an officer approached the line of sitting protesters and told each of them they would be arrested if they did not leave. None did, and all were peacefully taken into custody.
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