Eder Martinez, has successfully completed a year of college, he paid his entire college tuition through scholarships alone, he is an intelligent, educated young adult. He has been active in the Dream Act Coalition for about a month, and has already led an action for the national Right To Dream day of action.
Eder’s story begins with him pursuing a college education. Incredibly, despite being undocumented, He was able to successfully finish 1 year of community college. Unfortunately, when prop 300 passed in Arizona, he was unable to continue. To make matters worse, He also experienced the devastating reality of SB1070 coming into affect. With a permanently postponed college career and legislature in affect that directly oppressed his livelihood, it seemed like things could not get any worse for him.
Late in July 2010, Eder was at a Lightrail stop. He happened to be crossing the Lightrail tracks in running traffic, committing an infraction that dozens of people make every day.
Typically Lightrail security officials give a warning or ask you to walk down to the main street, but because Eder had Hispanic features and because under sb1070 he had now given a law enforcement official “probable cause” to be detained, Eder was now to be held by Lightrail transfer security until his immigration status could be determined.
Eder was asked by the Lightrail official for identification. Not aware of his civil rights, he produced his identification from the Mexican consulate.
He had now made two mistakes, he had cooperated with the officer’s request for his identification, even though he did not have to, and second the identification he produced was a foreign document.
Once the officer obtained his identification, he ran his name in the Phoenix law enforcement data base and found a warrant of arrest under eder’s name. The warrant had been issued due to a “contempt of court” charge. Contempt of court is a charge given when someone causes the court to reschedule a court hearing for a later date without notification.
Eder no longer had the chance to work out his warrant at the Phoenix municipal court. A charge fee of $200-$300 would have pardoned his contempt of court charge and would have also terminated his arrest warrant. Instead , he found himself being placed under arrest and taken to 4th avenue jail.
Because of secure communities, he was now given over to ice for interrogation. ICE officials determined that Eder was undocumented and would now be put in an ice holding. He was taken to the ice headquarters and spent over 24 hours in jail. At this point he had now been transferred to three different locations in the time that he was in custody. His last transfer was when he was given over to the department of homeland security. Luckily, Eder was able to pay a $2,500 bond to be released but his process for deportation removal is still in effect.
It is without a doubt that if Eder had not been able to pay his bail bond, he would still be in custody. This reality is the reason why our action was necessary. It is shocking to think that this situation can exist with any DREAMer that is placed under arrest for such a small infraction( crossing the Light-rail tracks in running traffic,jaywalking, not using a bike lane etc.)
The focus of this event was to pressure the Obama administration for categorical relief. We want this probability to no longer exist! You can clearly see with Eder’s testimony that DREAMers everyday still have reason to fear deportation.
This action took place to hold politicians accountable(regardless of political party) for allowing these circumstances to exist. This action took place to hold Arizona policy makers accountable for passing disgraceful policy that puts students, underage teens, young adults, college students, college graduates and families, in danger of being deported. This action took place to hold congress accountable for not taking this pressing issue and addressing it. This action took place to send the clear message to Obama and his executive administration that we are in dire need of categorical relief!
Obama promised immigration reform in the first 100 days of going into office, it’s been 4years, Obama promised that he would not permit good, moral families and DREAMERS to be deported, under his administration there has been the highest number of deportations than in any other presidency (over 1 million to be exact).
The biggest impacting visual that the media witnessed during our action was when Eder, after giving his speech, was taken away by our ICE officers. Christian and Dulce followed. To see graduates, in their cap an gowns be places under arrest, be zip tied and carried away like criminals, really gave a visual of the great injustice that is happening.
Prosecutorial discretion is not enough, its not working, we need a more direct form of administrative relief. We are still seeing our friends being put into deportation proceedings, we are still having our families torn apart, our degrees are sitting at home collecting dust, our households are in financial turmoil. Enough is enough.
We represent an issue, not a party. We are open to talk with any party to make an effort to provide relief for DREAMers. We live in the darkness of our oppression, we want LIGHT. We are bound by legislative RAILS , we want freedom.
Arizona DREAM Act Coalition 