Hundreds Of Deportees To Request Asylum At San Diego Border

La Opinion reports that more than 150 one-time immigrants who were deported from the United States will to attempt to re-enter at a port of entry near San Diego on Monday, where they plan to present themselves for arrest and request asylum in the US. About one-third of the group, which was organized by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), consists of Dreamers, or young people who were brought to the US illegally as children, according to Fusion. They constitute the third group of young undocumented activists to stage such a protest at the US-Mexico border, after the “Dream 9” and “Dream 30” groups sought asylum there in July and September.

NIYA spokeswoman Dulce Guerrero told La Opinion that more than 20 US states were represented by those who would be presenting themselves at the Otay Mesa port of entry on Monday. “We want to reunite the families,” she said. “There are even whole families who are coming back. We’ve got 50 kids, from age 1 to 16, 50 adult Dreamers and 50 adults, many of them mothers and fathers.” Fusion writes that one Dreamer member, 20-year-old Jaren Rodriguez Orellana, came to the Bay Area from Honduras at age four. He returned at age 18 after his older sister was deported and immigration attorneys told him he only needed to go back in order to gain legal status in the US. He told Fusion that he fears for his life since coming to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where he says he was stabbed during a robbery by gangs.

The Dream 9, a group consisting in part of Dreamers who left the country of their own accord – subjecting themselves to possible deportation as a result – had presented themselves at a port of entry in Arizona, where they were arrested and held at the nearby Eloy Detention Center. They were soon released without bail by authorities as they wait to face an immigration judge. The Dream 30, who entered at a Laredo, Texas port of entry, were less successful: 9 of them saw their request to petition for asylum rejected outright.