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 "I'm scared I could be deported," said Mejia, a 30-year-old
housewife, who crossed the border with her two children in 2014 to
seek economic opportunity but also because of fear of crime.
Mejia is fighting her deportation order in immigration court and she
went door to door to let others know they can do the same.
Similar campaigns are going on in cities from Boston to Richmond,
California, as activists, legal aid organizations and immigrant
groups react to the United States government's recent announcement
it would step up deportations of families that arrived since May
2014, when there was a surge of women and children arriving from El
Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, many fleeing drug gang violence.
Immigration is an issue at the forefront of the 2016 U.S.
presidential race, with Republican candidates pledging tough
measures to keep new immigrants out. Courts also have blocked
President Barack Obama's executive orders making more undocumented
immigrants eligible for work authorization.
"We're here to tell you not to open the door," Mejia and two
Guatemalan volunteers with her told one Spanish-speaking woman who
cautiously opened the door of her basement apartment.
Immigration lawyers say a deportation order is not an arrest order
and people do not have to open the door to immigration agents.
"You have rights," Mejia said as her 12-year-old son handed the
woman fliers about an upcoming legal clinic.
Hundreds of families in Chicago could meet the criteria for
deportation since the Department of Homeland Security said it was
targeting adults and children apprehended at the border and who were
allowed into the country but who have now been issued final
deportation orders, said Lawrence Benito, executive director of the
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, an advocacy
group.
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During the first weekend of the year, immigration authorities
detained 121 adults and children in Texas, Georgia and North
Carolina who met the new priority criteria, and said they will
continue such operations.
Immigration attorneys say people can still appeal for delays on a
final deportation order while they apply for refugee or other legal
status, even if the order was issued in absentia by a judge because
they did not show up for an immigration hearing.
A number of the families detained in southern states around New
Year's have been able to get emergency stays of their deportations,
an immigration official said.
At a Sunday gathering of a few dozen immigrants at a workshop in a
south-side Chicago basement, bilingual lawyer John Antia explained
their rights. "Do you have to open the door? No. Do you have to
talk? No," he said.
He urged people to memorize key phone numbers so that they can seek
legal aid if detained and cautioned them that they should not be
pressured into signing a voluntary departure.
(Editing by Ben Klayman and Steve Orlofsky)
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