Thread: Undocumented Northside woman is free after arrest in Alabama

Undocumented Northside woman is free after arrest in Alabama protest

cincinnati.com
Written by
Mark Curnutte
7:39 PM, Nov. 17, 2011

An undocumented immigrant who lives in Northside was released Thursday from local jail in Montgomery, Ala., after an act of civil disobedience against the state's immigration law led to her arrest Tuesday.

Alma Diaz, 30, who entered the United States without papers eight years ago from her native Mexico, is expected to return home Friday, said a Cincinnati immigration reform activist.

"Alma will ride back to Indianapolis with that group and then catch a bus back here," said Marco Saavedra, an organizer with the social action AMOS Project. "She was getting her phone service back."

Diaz, mother of a 5-year-old daughter born in the United States, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to yield the right of way on a Montgomery street near the state capitol. All 13 people arrested - all undocumented immigrants - were released Thursday, Saavedra said.

The New Orleans office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not comment late Thursday on the release.

The demonstrators were protesting Alabama's state immigration law, considered by supporters and detractors alike as toughest in the nation. Among its provisions is one requiring law enforcement officers to check immigration status, during routine traffic stops, of anyone suspected to be undocumented.

Two undocumented men who turned themselves in to federal immigration officials as part of the overall protest remain in ICE custody near New Orleans, say organizers with the Alabama Youth Collective and National Immigrant Youth Alliance.

The immigration reform organizations say they wanted to show the inconsistent application of the Obama Administration's directives for ICE to prioritize deportation cases and focus its resources on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and others who are threats to national security. The White House has directed ICE officials to exercise prosecutorial discretion for low-priority cases.

"These cases show that ICE is hesitant to get involved in low-priority cases when the public is watching," Saavedra said.

Immigrant youth organizers say they paid the bonds, believed to be $500 each, for the 13 people arrested Tuesday in Montgomery.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Department of Homeland Security - of which ICE is a part - has begun a review of 300,000 deportation cases now before federal immigration courts in an attempt to reduce heavy backlogs on burdened immigration judges. The goal is to allow judges to focus on deporting immigrants with serious criminal records or who pose threats to national security. The review of cases was spelled out in a June memo written by ICE director John Morton.

One of the cases that could be reviewed is that of Julio Tellez, 24, of Hamilton, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was issued a continuance by an immigration judge Oct. 12 in Cleveland. Tellez, the sole breadwinner of his undocumented mother and two younger U.S. citizen siblings, is scheduled to return to court Dec. 14.

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http://www.alipac.us/article-6780--0-0.html

they are just letting illegal aliens walk right out the doors of our jails. They are making it very clear that illegals have no need to worry about immigration enforcement, even in Alabama, Arizona, or Georgia!

Which is why we cannot, will not become complacent or become overwhelmed. We need to stand together, be strong and be heard. We have had had good results in the past and we can do it again!