At a Jan. 5 rally that gathered
over 100 demonstrators outside
the Varick Street Immigrant Detention
Center, eight clergy and community
leaders were arrested after
stopping traffi c for 30 minutes. The
protesters were demanding the immediate
release of Jean Montrevil,
a Haitian immigrant rights leader,
arrested days earlier and blocking
immigration vans that were transporting
new immigrant detainees to
the center.
Montrevil, the 40-year-old father
of four U.S.-born children, legally
immigrated from Haiti to the
U.S. in1986 and has since resided
there as a legal permanent resident.
However, the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) is trying
to deport him for a 1989 drug
conviction, for which Montrevil
served 11 of a 27 year sentence. He
was freed early for good behavior,
and his record has been clean ever
since.
Montrevil was detained on
Dec. 30 during a routine check-in
with DHS in Manhattan and is now
held in Pennsylvania’s York County
Jail, where he is on a hunger strike
along with other detainees.
“I am fasting side-by-side
with nearly 60 others to take a
stand against this horrifi c deportation
and detention system that is
tearing families apart,” he said.
Montrevil’s wife, Janay, 31,
an African-American school teacher
from Brooklyn, attended the Jan. 5
rally in Manhattan. “Our son keeps
calling Jean’s cell phone, hoping
daddy will pick up,” she said. “He
asks me ‘Why are they pretending
daddy is bad? So he will go back
to Haiti?’”
Janay Montrevil says the family
will be traumatized if her husband
is deported, particularly their
6-year-old son Jahsiah, who is severely
asthmatic and disabled. “Jean
made mistakes before we started
building a family together,” she
said. “Homeland Security wants to
turn me into a single mother.”
As a community leader, Montrevil
became a national spokesperson
for the Child Citizen Protection
Act (H.R. 182), a proposal before
the U.S. House of Representatives
that would be incorporated into the
deportation process if it becomes
law. The proposal would allow immigration
judges to consider American
children’s best interests before
deporting a parent. This proposal
is also part of Representative Luis
Gutierrez’s recently introduced bill,
the Comprehensive Immigration
Reform for America’s Security and
Prosperity Act (H.R. 4321).
Moreover, calls from church,
political and community leaders for
Montrevil’s immediate release and
for comprehensive immigration reform
have mounted since his detention. “I am being arrested because
it is a moral outrage that our government
would do this to such a
great man and father,” said the
Rev. Donna Schaper of Judson Memorial
Church, where Montrevil’s
family worships, as she was being
handcuffed at the rally. “These immigration
laws that destroy families
contradict the values we should
uphold as a society. They need to
change now.”
Politicians are also being motivated
by Montrevil’s arrest. “Jean
Montrevil’s case is precisely why
we need to see the provisions of the
Child Citizen Protection Act passed
into law – ideally as part of comprehensive
immigration reform,”
said Congressman José E. Serrano
(D-NY). “We cannot continue to
allow infl exible deportation guidelines
to separate families with U.S.
citizen children. I commend all
those fi ghting on Jean’s behalf, and
look forward to a successful resolution
of this sad case, and a day
when there is more humaneness in
our nation’s immigration laws.” NY City Council member
Rosie Mendez and NY State Senator
Thomas K. Duane also expressed
their support. Congresswoman Nydia
Velazquez (D-NY) wrote a letter to
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) stating that “my offi ce
believes that [Montrevil’s] deportation
will be a disproportionate
punishment to him, his family, and
his community.”
Also among those arrested at
the rally was Catholic leader, Juan
Carlos Ruiz de Dios. “To fan the
winds of change, we are putting
our bodies on the line – where our
mouths, brains and energies have
been for many years,” he said in a
statement. “Our demand is simple
and reasonable. We ask [DHS Chief
Janet] Napolitano, as she works
with [NY Senator Chuck] Schumer,
to include the very principle of judicial
discretion and due process in
the spirit of how they approach immigration
reform.” Grammy-award-winning recording
artist Dan Zanes joined the
Jan. 5 rally and performed songs
dedicated to the movement to keep
immigrant families together.
Meanwhile in Naranja, FL,
located south of Miami near Homestead,
an area heavily populated by
immigrants from Mexico, Central
America and Haiti, fi ve people have
been fasting in a church since Jan.
1.
“Five of us are fasting indefi
nitely, as long as it takes,” said
long-time North American solidarity
activist and unionist Jonathon Fried,
the executive director of WeCount!, a grassroots membership
organization with centers
in Homestead and Cutler
Bay, Florida, that fi ghts
for immigrant, worker and
youth rights. “Our target
is President Obama and
our goal is to get him
to use the legal authority
he has, now, without
Congress, to suspend the
detention and deportation
of immigrants with
American families, those
who have US citizen children
and/or spouses....
This decision to fast was
not taken lightly. I was
tired of getting phone
calls from a mother, a
father, a brother, a sister
saying that their loved
ones, their family, was
taken away by ICE.... For
a number of years the
noose has been tightening
around the neck of
immigrant communities.
Yet never have things
been worse than under
the Obama Administration.
He is escalating and
systematizing the policies
of attrition followed under
the previous administration,
trying to make life so
miserable for immigrants
that they leave. Increasing
local law enforcement’s
role in the deportation
system; ... persons
are deported for the crime
of being poor, brown and
undocumented, all under
the false guise of combating
crime; increasing the
rate of detentions and deportations
of immigrants,
using a vast system of
government and private
prisons, and even secret
sub-offi ces; violent early
morning raids on homes;
worst of all, is the separating
parents from their
children.... It is time to
say to President Obama:
This is on your watch.” The others on the
Florida hunger strike are
Guatemalan immigrants
Francisco Agustin
and Sebastian
Cano; Jenny Aguilar,
a Honduran
immigrant who
has lived in the
US for 18 years;
Wilfredo Mendoza,
a U.S. citizen
from Puerto Rico,
and a welder
by profession.
One anonymous
woman faster,
the mother of
two US citizen
children, ages 4
and 6, has lived
in the US since 2001. She
was stopped by police
when driving alone in her
car and arrested for driving
without a license. Although
she had no criminal
record and the charges
were dropped, she was
turned over to ICE and deported,
after fi ve weeks in
detention, to Mexico.
On Thursday, Jan.
14 at 12:30 p.m., the
Families for Freedom will
hold a demonstration
outside the ICE Detention
Center at 201 Varick
Street in Manhattan. |