Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a Gestapo like late night raid on the Phoenix home of one of the most outspoken and active leaders of the DREAM movement.
The ICE raid on Erika Andiola's residence took place at approximately 10 p.m. Phoenix time. Erika has her DREAM status and was not taken into custody, but her mother and brother were both detained and taken to ICE offices in downtown Phoenix.
From the petition on the Arizona DREAM Activist web page...
Late in the evening of January 10th, 2013, several undercover officers approached the home of Maria and her family asking to enter their home. Maria’s oldest daughter, Erika Andiola, informed them that they were not allowed to enter the house as they did not have proper documents. Your agents disregarded her warnings and proceeded to arrest Erika’s mother and brother, who was outside at the time.
Both mother and son have never been charged of any crime that would make them ineligible to be considered low-priority for enforcement. Recently both were charged with traffic violations which, according to the recently revised ICE protocols, should not have resulted in this detention.
Those traffic tickets are recent, I recall Erika posting something about them on her Facebook status.. said the cops came out of the blue...
Would not surprise me if Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was working with ICE to make a situation where they could strike at Erika and her family. If the police had detained her mother and brother when they were ticketed, Erika would have had more time to fight for their release. With ICE doing the detention, they were sent straight to the ICE private prison at Florence to await disposition.
UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD
Erika received a call at 3 am Phoenix time from her brother who informed her that ICE is planning to deport her mother to Mexico first thing this morning.
If anyone knows how to contact Janet Napolitano or anyone higher up in ICE or the White House, this act of vengeance against Erika must be stopped. It would not surprise me if Joe Arpaio is behind this somewhere.
Erika is an incredibly smart, talented and hardworking young woman who has done everything right, including getting her law degree. Now she is being punished for trying to reach her dreams...
Erika and her mother need your help NOW. Please call your congress person and ask to know why ICE conducted this totally unexpected and arbitrary night time raid against Erika's home.
UPDATE: Erika's brother has been freed. Her mother is still in Florence. Erika stated this on her Facebook status a few minutes ago...
He also told Erika that ICE had a whole file on her when they came to the house. This was not business as usual.
UPDATE 2: Thanks to a LOT of calls made on Erika's mom's behalf, especially those made by a retired ACLU immigration attorney, top officials of ICE in D.C. were made aware of the actions in Arizona and the bus that was carrying Erika's mom to the border was stopped and turned around back to the ICE facilities in Florence, AZ., where Maria Arreola was taken off the bus and released.
Arizona DREAMer's have a press conference planned in front of the ICE office in downtown Phoenix at 8:30 am this morning.
Here is the Talking Points Memo article on what happened
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
http://action.dreamactivist.org/...