Stop the Deportation of North Carolina faith community

From the Southern Coalition for Social Justice:

On April 15, 2010, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in Louisiana detained over forty members of the Evangelical Latino congregation, “El Buen Pastor.” The families were returning home to Raleigh, North Carolina from an annual jubilee in Texas, called the “Santa Cena” or “Holy Week.” The church members were traveling on Interstate-10 when they were stopped. The vans were not cited with any traffic violations; rather, the stop and the arrests were motivated by CBP’s suspicion — based on Latino appearance — that  the church members may be undocumented. Read more…

One of the women recounted how it happened:

“The officials were banging on the [car] door. My sister-in-law told the officials to lower their voices. . . All of us were scared. We said, “We are coming from a church event.” There were babies in the car and they were all crying… As my children watched the officers handcuff my husband they started to cry… Everyone else was crying and the official just laughed, asking if God would save us from this.”
Several families were immediately ripped apart, as ICE deported nearly half of those detained. Now ICE is trying to deport the remaining 24 members of the Buen Pastor congregation. Since October 2010, with the support of SCSJ and the NC Dream Team, the members of Buen Pastor have held two vigils and a press conference about the human rights abuses they have suffered at the hand of Customs and Border Patrol.

Take Action Now:
Sign the Petition and tell ICE Secretary John Morton to drop the charges and stop the deportation of these faith community members! Join us in supporting SCSJ in collecting thousands of signatures before the Buen Pastor members’ hearings with ICE on September 22, 2011.

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice has been representing the church members in immigration proceedings and will fight a civil case against the CBP.

bh