#FreeTio

We know this is just wrong. Anyone who has ever had an alcohol problem or a loved one with an alcohol addiction knows that people struggling with alcohol issues are still our beloved family and community members. Many of us have friends or loved ones who have been arrested for driving under the influence and have learned from their mistakes and are not any less important to us because of their arrest. Chucho and Eduardo have both had difficult lives as undocumented breadwinners for their families and have not had access to mental health care (or much of any healthcare really as undocumented people) and have self-medicated in the past with alcohol. Both of them are committed to recovering and sobriety. Chucho, who had a family member traumatically murdered, has been going to Alcoholics Anonymous and doing community service. Eduardo and his wife were about to start counseling to help him recover and he was scheduled to begin community service soon.

Chucho is a 51-year-old father of 3 U.S citizens and the grandfather of a 3-year-old boy who he helps raise. He has lived in the United States since 1989. Because of an incompetent lawyer, he missed a court hearing and received a deportation order in 1998. He is an integral part of our family and must be released. ICE is threatening to deport him on Tuesday but with the trend in ICE that we’ve been seeing, it can be any day! His daughter Karen says, “My dad is very helpful and takes my son to school. My son keeps asking where his grandpa is. We need him back now.”

Eduardo is a 29-year-old father of two little U.S. citizen children, a 3-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy. The 5-year-old was telling his classmates today that a group of men took his daddy away, and Eduardo's wife Mirna had to explain to the teacher what was happening. Eduardo has lived in the U.S. since 2005. Mirna says, "I want him back because my kids keep asking for his dad, and I don't want his absence to affect their health in the future."

I myself am an organizer with the East Bay Immigrant Youth Coalition where I have helped fight many deportations, including successfully getting my good friend Yadira's Abuelito off of a deportation van one month ago. I know the immense power that our gente has and feel confident that we can get Chucho and Eduardo home!

Please sign this petition to tell ICE that Chucho and Eduardo need support and counseling, not to be banished and have their families destroyed and their community destabilized. Also, please call the local ICE field director in San Francisco Craig Meyer at (415) 844 5512 ext. 4 and tell him not to deport Chucho and Eduardo!

In solidarity,

Itzel Calvo Medina

Sign petition here:
http://action.ndlon.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=21592

National Day Laborer Organizing Network
http://ndlon.org/