Illegal immigrants blockade Atlanta office to halt deportations

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Illegal immigrants blockaded a federal office that handles deportations in Atlanta on Tuesday, saying they wanted to increase pressure on President Obama to use his executive authority to stop more deportations.Late last week the Obama administration said it would allow illegal immigrant relatives of U.S. troops and veterans to apply for “parole in place,” which would allow them to remain in the country — and the activists Tuesday said they want the same considerations for all illegal immigrants.“Undocumented, unafraid,” the protesters chanted.

“No papers, no fear.”The protests were part of the Not One More campaign, which has staged similar protests in Arizona, California and Louisiana, broadcasting the action on the web.In the case of Atlanta, video showed activists blocking a gate and being taken away by police.

The activists said they were prodded to action by Georgia’s use of two different programs, Secure Communities and the 287(g) program, which the federal government runs to check jails and prisons for illegal immigrants they might want to deport.

“If the president can stop the deportations of military families, he can stop breaking apart other families as well,” one of the protesters, Marisela Medina, said in a statement issued by the organizers as the protest was underway.

“All my children think about is the day I could be taken away. Instead the president should grant relief to my family and all families.

What is he waiting for?”A message left at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Atlanta wasn’t immediately returned Tuesday morning.

Mr. Obama has said he doesn’t believe he can unilaterally halt all deportations, though his administration has steadily carved out individual categories of people that it says it will no longer try to remove.

Chief among those are young illegal immigrants, who call themselves “Dreamers,” and who are considered among the most sympathetic figures in the immigration debate because they were usually brought to the U.S. by a parent with no say in the decision.

As of August, more than 450,000 young illegal immigrants had been granted tentative legal status under that policy.

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