Four immigrant advocates were arrested after they chained themselves to ladders in the middle of a busy Atlanta, Georgia intersection on Monday, challenging President Barack Obama to issue a moratorium on deportations. The move came just days after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to uphold a lower court decision to block millions of undocumented immigrants from seeking temporary deportation relief and work authorization.
Chanting “si se puede” (yes we can) and “not one more deportation,” about 50 immigrants and advocates — still angry about the SCOTUS decision — marched to the Atlanta Field office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) federal agency, to show their frustration over immigration operations that have taken place since the new year to primarily detain and arrest Central American mothers and children in the Atlanta area and in North Carolina. The Atlanta ICE field office accounted for more than one-third of all the people arrested in the Operation Border Guardian raid, which targeted teenagers who have lost their immigration court cases or had final removal orders.
“We are defending the security and stability of our families, sending a direct message to the Obama Administration,” Carlos Medina, one of the participants and a member of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, said. “We know that he has the ability to stop deportations at any given time. Our fight will not stop. The only thing that we will stop is the sinister machine that is the deportation machine created by this administration.”
Total of 4 arrests after immigration protest blocked intersection in downtown Atlanta. All clear now pic.twitter.com/xbey0qbvZI
— Steve Gehlbach (@SteveGWSB) June 27, 2016
Atlanta PD ready to remove and arrest protesters blocking intersection on Ted Turner Dr. next to ICE field office pic.twitter.com/qmoArbNR5Q
— Steve Gehlbach (@SteveGWSB) June 27, 2016
#MoratoriumNow #DismantleICE #Not1More #TurnUp @Not1_More @ConMijente @ignitekindred pic.twitter.com/Pys22Or3n6
— GLAHR (@GLAHR_) June 27, 2016
#MoratoriumNow #DismantleICE #Not1More #TurnUp pic.twitter.com/OdazfuBrJ8
— GLAHR (@GLAHR_) June 27, 2016
Some of the high school students who were arrested by ICE agents during these raids are still being kept in detention. One 19-year-old teen, Wildin Acosta, is still being held in an immigration detention center two hours south of Atlanta, five months after he was arrested as he was heading to attend school in Durham, North Carolina. Yefri Sorto-Hernandez, another teen arrested as he was waiting at a bus stop, will reportedly be freed on bond soon, according to advocates.
“No human being can be illegal, and no innocent child should live in fear of deportation,” Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said in a recent press statement to condemn the raids. “I have fought my whole life to ensure that every human being is treated with fairness and justice…The raids conducted as part of Operation Border Guardian have deeply troubled me… They are an inappropriate response to those fleeing violence and disorder. It is my hope that DHS ends this Operation and finds the most humane way to address these refugees.”
Democratic Reps. G.K. Butterfield (NC), Hank Johnson (GA), and Alma Adams (NC) joined Lewis in a letter earlier this month expressing their concerns about Operation Border Guardian to Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.