Hi Rosi
Well Alabama is definitely a different place. When we first arrived almost a week ago we were assured by many local advocates that ICE was different here, 'ICE isn't detaining folks here.' We stepped out of Birmingham and it is a different story. We have not been able to go a day without hearing of someone who has been harassed by local police or detained by ICE.
Take Christian for example, he is 17 years-old. Instead of spending the last month in high-school he has been locked up in the local jail. His crime? Being brown and from Mexico. He was initially arrested after a routine traffic stop and sent to jail. Thankfully he was released, however the officer wasn't satisfied. Three days later while Christian was taking his girlfriend to the rodeo the same officer saw him, "why are you here, you should have been in Mexico by now!"
The officer re-arrested Christian and he has spent the last month in jail. Christian's family was told ICE would be detaining him today. We need your support to make sure ICE stay's clear of Christian, make a call to John Morton's office and demand ICE not detain Christian.
"Hi, I am calling to demand that ICE officials not detain Christian Edgar Luna from the Jefferson County Jail in Alabama. Christian is only 17 and is DREAM Act eligible. Christian was racially profiled, why are ICE agents supporting this behavior?"
There is a lot of work to do here in Alabama. The normal isn't at play her in Alabama, here the policies being put in place are trying to drive out the Latino community through attrition. Basically, 'let's make life so difficult for people that they just get up and leave.' Schools may no longer be allowed to check the status of students but that doesn't stop other students from constantly asking the 'brown' students for papers.
The climate created here in Alabama is a very dangerous one. Let's stop Christian from being detained by ICE so we can get to work on other cases.
Thanks for your call and your continued support!
Much love,
Mohammad Abdollahi
Co-founder of DreamActivist.org
All of the work we do is volunteer-run, please consider making a donation to support us.
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