Immigrants Complain Of Family Member Arrests During March
CHICAGO (CBS) -- While immigrants and supporters were attending Tuesday's May Day rally for immigration reform in downtown Chicago, they say agents with Homeland Security were arresting some of their family members in their homes.
Father Jose Landeverde, an activist in the Latino immigrant community, translated as several women cried and told their stories at Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Catholic Mission, a storefront church on the 3400 block of West 26th Street in the Little Village neighborhood.
WBBM Newsradio's Mike Krauser reports, one said her son was taken. Another said it was her husband.
Landaverde said at least 18 undocumented immigrants were arrested in their homes on Tuesday, by federal agents using same method to get inside.
He says in each case, the agents knocked on doors and held up photographs, asking the residents if they knew the person.
The agents, he says, would then come inside and ask occupants for identification. Then they'd make the arrests.
He says the same tactics have been used to arrest illegal immigrants elsewhere in the Chicago area.
He said he's denouncing politicians who make what he says are beautiful speeches about immigration reform but who do nothing to make it happen.
Meanwhile, he says, families are suffering.
One woman whose husband was deported two years ago, Josephina Resendic, a U.S. citizen, says, "They just screwed my life, they just messed up my children's life."
She went on to blame politicians for lack of movement on immigration reform, saying they're more worried about their political futures than doing what's right.
