Tell ICE: Release the Valle Brothers!
UPDATE:
We prevailed!!!
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released the Valle brothers last night! Our brothers Michell and Yasser Valle are home with their family on this Thanksgiving day. Thanks to the collective power of over 2,000 activists like you and me, our community stood up for justice for this family.
The brothers and their family extend a huge thank you to those who signed their petition and made calls to demand their release.
While ICE provided relief to the Valle brothers, there are countless deportations of similar DREAM Act eligible students. We will continue to hold the Obama administration, Janet Napolitano, and John Morton accountable for the separation of our families and inhumane treatment of our community. While unfortunately this won't be the last case fight for, it won't be our last victory.
During Thanksgiving dinner, we ask that you keep those in deportation and unjustly detained in detention centers across the nation in your thoughts. Their struggle is our struggle, and we won't stop fighting for them until justice is served.
We at the United We Dream Network are thankful for all you do for our movement.
Michell D. Valle (left), their father (middle) and Yasser S. Valle (right)
Michell D. Valle and Yasser S. Valle were born in Peru and immigrated to the United States in 1989, at the young age of 6 and 5 years old. They both graduated from high school and went on to attend college.
Michell wrote the following letter to us from a detention facility in New Jersey where they are currently under I.C.E. supervision. Michell has been detained for over a year (since October 25, 2010) and his brother Yasser for almost 3 months (since August 5, 2011).
"Ever since I can remember, my mother tried to fix our immigration status. We were beneficiaries of her petition, which was approved, and automatically adjusted our status in the United States at the age of 14 and 13. Eventually, my mother’s case was denied causing my brother and me to have our status terminated by immigration. After trying to reach her attorney, she found out that he no longer occupied the office where he worked; nobody had ever even heard about him. In 2009 my mother was deported by Immigration Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.), but we continued to fight our case.
I am a father of two beautiful kids, a boy and a girl who are only 3 and 4 years old. They depend on me and constantly ask when daddy is coming home. I also have two nieces and three nephews whom my brother and I helped raise. They think that their uncles are in a program where they can’t leave because of work purposes.
We are writing this letter from the detention center to express our dire need of your support. I’m trying to organize a campaign to stop our deportation. We need all the support that we can get. Your help will require informing someone you know about our story and asking them to sign this petition."
Sign this petition to tell ICE Field Office Director, John Tsoukaris, to release from Michell D. Valle and Yasser S. Valle from detention, and grant them Prosecutorial Discretion.