The following article, written by David Iaconangelo, was published in Latin Times on Aug 22, 2013 04:51 PM EDT. The original article can be found here.
Immigration Reform 2013: 10 Activists Arrested For Blocking New York City Street
10 activists were arrested in New York City today in a protest organized by a coalition of immigrant-rights groups New Yorkers for Real Immigration Reform and the New Sanctuary Coalition. The activists told the Associated Press they hoped to keep up pressure on Congress to pass an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system with a pathway to citizenship for all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Participants also aimed to protest the ongoing deportation of undocumented immigrants by the Department of Homeland Security.
Manuel Castro, a member of the New York Immigration Coalition, told the AP, “The reform should be passed right now. We need there to be action. What we’re doing is trying to turn up the heat of the campaign on the national level.” Other protestors, like Alina Das, a co-director at the Immigration Rights Clinic at NYU Law, said they were there to protest detention and deportation policies. “We cannot stand idly by while hundreds of thousands of families are torn apart by deportation and detention policies each year,” said Das. “We speak out today to urge Congress to fix our broken immigration system and not let this opportunity for sensible and humane reform go to waste. The price we pay today is small compared to the price we will all pay if Congress fails to act.”
Among the 10 who were arrested were a nun and an academic, who were handcuffed and taken off in a police vehicle in front of the Varick Street Detention Center in midtown Manhattan. The AP wrote that the 40 to 50 people who attended the protest shouted slogans like “What do we want? Immigration reform! When do we want it? Now!”. The detention center is considered a “service processing center”, meaning immigrants are only held there for processing before being transferred to one of a host of county jails in New Jersey and New York that double as detention centers for immigrants.
Advocates of a comprehensive immigration reform have been pressuring opponents throughout the five-week August Congressional recess, staging protests in the districts of House Republicans who have balked at the idea of extending legal status or a path to citizenship to many of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. In the latest such example, some 1,500 supporters of reform from Los Angeles descended upon the town of Bakersfield, California, which has a substantial Hispanic population, to demand that the third-ranking Republican in the House, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, reverse his stance on the issue.
