December, 05 2017, 06:15am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Erika Andiola, (480) 278-6843
nodreamnodeal@gmail.com
Cynthia Montes, (562) 237-116
Dreamers and Allies Escalate Sit-Ins in 30 Offices Across the Country
Dreamers and Allies Stage Sit-ins Today at 30 Local Senate and House Offices in 12 States; Demand Members Pledge to Vote Against Year-End Spending Bill Unless Clean Dream Act Is Included
WASHINGTON
On Tuesday December 5, undocumented youth across the country escalate the pressure on members of congress from both parties to publictly pledge to vote against a spending bill to fund the government unless a clean version of the DREAM Act is attached. This sit-ins build on Monday's actions, in which hundreds of people protested at 14 congressional offices across the country, leading to arrests in some of them and public responses from members, including Sen. Patrick Leahy from Vermont.
Dreamers will be risking arrest in several of the sit-ins, including "Original Dreamer" Tereza Lee, who, after sharing her story with Sen. Dick Durbin in 2001, inspired him to draft the first version of the DREAM Act.
Tuesday's actions are part of a larger movement to fight for a clean Dream Act, where immigrants brought to the United States as children are able to live, learn, work, and pursue their dreams in the only country they've ever known as home.
Visit https://fightforourdream.org/ for a full list Tuesday's actions.
KEY EVENTS:
Tuesday, December 5
Arizona
8:30 AMSen. Flake's Phoenix Office,2200 E. Camelback Rd. Suite 120, Phoenix AZ. More info here.
11:00 AMMcSally's Congressional office, 4400 E. Broadway Blvd. # 510, Tucson AZ. More info here.
California
12:00 PMSen. Feinstein's Los Angeles Office, 11111 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite 915, Los Angeles CA. More info here.
Colorado
3:00 PMSen. Gardner's Denver Office, 721 19th St., Ste. 150, Denver CO. More info here.
3:00 PMRep. Coffman's Aurora Office, 3300 S. Parker Rd., Suite #305, Aurora CO. More info here.
Florida
12:00 PMRep. Diaz-Balart's Office, 8669 NW 36th St, Suite 100, Doral FL. More info here.
10:00 AMSen. Duckworth's Office, 230 South Dearborn Street Suite 3900, Chicago IL. More info here.
3:00 PMOffice of Rep. Lahood, 3004 G.E. Rd Suite 1B, Bloomington IL. More info here.
Nevada
10:00 AMSen. Heller's Las Vegas Office, 8930 W. Sunset Rd. Suite 230, Las Vegas NV. More info here.
12:00 PMSen. Heller's Reno Office, 400 S. Virginia St. Bruce Thompson Federal Building Suite 738, Reno NV. More info here.
New York
9:30 AMNY Senator Schumer's Peekskill Office, 1 Park Pl #100, Peekskill NY. More info here.
10:00 AMSenator Schumer's NYC Office, 780 Third Avenue, Suite 2301 New York, NY. More info here.
Ohio
4:00 PMPortman's Cincinnati Office, 312 Walnut St #3425, Cincinnati OH. More info here.
Texas
10:30 AMSen. Cornyn's Dallas Office, 5001 Spring Valley Rd. Suite 1125 E, Dallas, TX 75244. More info here.
Utah
12:00 PMSit-In at Wallace Bennett Federal Building, 25 E 100 S, Salt Lake City, Utah 84138. More info here.
Washington
12:15 PMRep. Newhouse's Richland Office, 3100 George Washington Way #130, Richland WA. More info here.
2:00 PMRep. McMorris Rodger's Spokane Office, 10 North Post Street, Suite 625, Spokane WA. More info here.
LATEST NEWS
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FBI agents arrested Dugan, 65, on Friday following an investigation, accusing her of escorting an undocumented man and his attorney through her courtroom's jury door after learning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up to arrest him.
Protesters chanted slogans including, "No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist USA!" and "No Hate, No Fear, Immigrants Are Welcome Here!" They held signs with messages like "Liberty and Justice for All" and "Resist Fascism!"
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd of protesters march through the streets outside an FBI office in Milwaukee in support of Judge Hannah Dugan (Video: @unraveledpress.com)
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— Marco Foster ( @marcofoster.bsky.social) April 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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Wisconsin state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) told the crowd: "The judiciary acts as a check to unchecked executive power. And functioning democracies do not lock up judges."
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Janan Najeeb, one of the leaders of the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, told rallygoers: "The courtroom is not a hunting ground for ICE. It is a sanctuary. When our government turns our courtrooms into traps, they are betraying the very laws that they claim to defend."
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights director Angelica Salas said in a statement that "in an unprecedented move against members of the judicial branch, the Trump administration is exercising authoritarianism to degrees that should alarm us all."
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Critics have called Dugan's arrest part and parcel of President Donald Trump's attacks on immigrants, the nation's system of checks and balances, and the rule of law.
"The Trump administration deserves zero benefit of the doubt here. It has evinced utter contempt for due process and the rule of law since inauguration day," Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect, wrote on Friday. "It has deported numerous legal residents, most notably Kilmar Abrego García, to an El Salvador torture dungeon, and is openly disobeying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision to bring García back."
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Among those pushing back against Dugan's arrest are Wisconsin Circuit Judge Monica Isham, who wrote in an email to other judges: "Enough is enough. I no longer feel protected or respected as a judge in this administration. If there is no guidance for us and no support for us, I will refuse to hold court."
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According to the memo:
As much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above—and have an executed warrant of apprehension and removal—before contacting an alien enemy. However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing alien enemies... An officer may encounter a suspected alien enemy in the natural course of the officer's enforcement activity, such as when apprehending other validated members of Tren de Aragua. Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an alien enemy. This authority includes entering an alien enemy's residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed notice and warrant of apprehension and removal.
The Trump administration's controversially broad interpretation of the AEA and questionable criteria for targeting immigrants has led to the arrest and wrongful deportation of individuals including makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero and Kilmar Abrego García, both of whom were sent to CECOT. The Trump administration is defying a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego García's return to the United States.
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On Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple detained in El Paso under the AEA, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's lead counsel in cases challenging use of the AEA, told USA Today: "The administration's unprecedented use of a wartime authority during peacetime was bad enough. Now we find out the Justice Department was authorizing officers to ignore the most bedrock principle of the Fourth Amendment by authorizing officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant."
Monique Sherman, an attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, expressed alarm over the DOJ memo.
"The home under all constitutional law is the most sacred place where you have a right to privacy," Sherman told USA Today. "By this standard, spurious allegations of gang affiliation means the government can knock down your door."
As Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck
said, "There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment."
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Federal immigration authorities deported three U.S. citizen children on Friday—including one with cancer who was reportedly expelled without medication—in a move that critics and one judge appointed by President Donald Trump said was carried out without due process.
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Disappearing mothers and toddlers, denying them access to lawyers, deporting them without due process - this is not what a democracy does to its citizens and families and to their kids.
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— Vanessa Cardenas (@vcardenas.bsky.social) April 25, 2025 at 6:48 PM
According to court documents, the 2-year-old New Orleans native—identified as V.M.L.—was brought by her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, to a routine immigration appointment in the Louisiana city on Tuesday when they were arrested.
A habeas petition filed on Thursday states that ICE New Orleans Field Office Director Mellissa Harper told V.M.L.'s desperate father on a phone call that he could try to pick the girl up but would likely be arrested, as he is undocumented. The petition argues that Harper was detaining V.M.L. "in order to induce her father to turn himself in to immigration authorities."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty—a Trump nominee—ordered a May 16 hearing in Monroe, Louisiana based on his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
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The ACLU argued that ICE's actions "represent a shocking—although increasingly common—abuse of power," adding that the agency "has inflicted harm and jeopardized the lives and health of vulnerable children and a pregnant woman. The cruelty and deliberate denial of legal and medical access are not only unlawful, but inhumane."
When historians reflect on this regime, cruelty will be the word most often used to define it. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/u...
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— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) April 26, 2025 at 6:44 AM
Teresa Reyes-Flores of the Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition said in a statement Friday: "ICE's actions show a blatant violation of due process and basic human rights. The families were disappeared, cut off from their lawyers and loved ones, and rushed to be deported, stripping their parents of the chance to protect their U.S. citizen children."
Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy legal director Homero López Jr. said that "these deplorable actions demonstrate ICE's increasing willingness to violate all protections for immigrants as well as those of their children."
"These types of disappearances are reminiscent of the darkest eras in our country's history and put everyone, regardless of immigration status, at risk," he added.
The Trump administration—whose first-term immigration policies and practices included separating children from their parents and imprisonment in concentration camps—is once again under fire for its anti-immigrant agenda.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked the deportation of undocumented Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and has also ordered the administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported to a notorious prison in his native country. On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the administration to take action to return another Salvadoran deported to the same prison.
In a scathing ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple dubiously held in El Paso under the Alien Enemies Act, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
ICE overreach and abuses—which include wrongful detention of U.S. citizens, arrests of green-card holders who defend Palestine, and warrantless home searches—have fueled renewed calls for the agency's defunding.
ICE abducted a man with a learning disability leaving a hospital after a medical emergency asking for help. They didn’t care that he was a U.S. citizen. They just lied and said he wasn’t. This isn’t “border security.” It’s white supremacy. popular.info/p/us-citizen...
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— Melanie D’Arrigo (@darrigomelanie.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 4:38 AM
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