Please Help Matias Ramos

Matias Ramos is one of the founders of the DREAMer movement.  He is a Newman Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.  Matias already had a work permit and was reporting regularly to an ICE office in Fairfax, Virginia.  Last week he was given orders for deportation.  Web site in support of Matias Ramos:  www.endourpain.com/matias



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Good afternoon friends of immigration reform,

I write to you to ask that you join CCO, PICO, United We Dream, and many other organizations in calling for the stop to the deportation of DREAM students - especially Matias Ramos, a co-founder of the United We Dream Network.  He is expected to leave the country in the next 11 days and his deportation would be a great loss to the DREAM movement and show just how effective the recent DHS memos regarding prioritization actually are (or are not in this case).  Please take the time to read the message below from his colleague and friend and then act by signing the petition, e-mailing Lindsay to sign-on to the letter, and joining the call if you are able.  Thank you for your continued support of our DREAM students!

Whitney Gerlach | Community Organizer

COMMUNITIES CREATING OPPORTUNITY

office 816-444-5585x8 | cell 816-604-0401

CCO.org | @CCOwhitney | @KansasCityCCO

CCO is a federation of the PICO National Network

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As you have heard, Matias Ramos, co-founder of the United We Dream Network, a loved and respected leader in the fight for a just immigration system, is being ordered to leave the country in 12 days. He is one of my best friends and one of our board members for United We Dream, we are outraged and
saddened to hear that this is happening to him, but we know that he is just an example of the pain that our immigrant community is enduring.

Matias was arrested in an airport and released by immigration in February of 2010 after attending a national gathering of immigrant youth. After being detained in 2010, Matias was issued a deportation order and put on an order of supervision. He was also given a work permit and now works as a Newman Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. For the past year and a half, he has been on an order of supervision that requires him to report regularly in Fairfax, Virginia. 

At a regular report meeting with ICE last week, Matias was placed on the Intense Supervision and Appearance Program (ISAP) which requires him to wear an ankle bracelet at all times, and charge it against the wall for three hours each day.  The bracelet talks to him; it barks out commands at different times of the day.  The ISAP people have already come to his home twice to check on him.

The most shocking part of this ICE action is after the amount of work that we all have done to push the Obama Administration to issue guidelines to stop the deportations of many non-criminals in our community, their guidelines and announcements are not having an effect in creating relief for our community. On the contrary we are seeing the regional local ICE offices take matters into their own hands to continue to deport as many people as they can.

Thank you for all of the support and concern you all have shown for Matias, as we’ve launched a public campaign for deferred action on his case. So far, we have circulated a petition for his case which can be found here:www.endourpain.com/matias We need your organization's support for Matias's case in the following ways;

1.     Sign on to the attached letter asking Enrique Lucero, the Fairfax ICE Field Office Director, to grant Matias deferred action. Email Lindsay McCluskey at mccluskey.lindsay@gmail.com by 5pm on Friday to sign on.
2.      Send out the petition to your organizational list serves to help build strong public support for Matias (here is the link to our current petition www.endorupain.com/matias) for support please contact our online manager Rosa Alvarez at rosa@unitedwedream.org
3.     Join us for a call on Friday at 3pm EST to discuss more ways that you can stop Matias's deportation and many others that are in similar circumstances, please RSVP by sending me an email - carlos@unitedwedream.org
Matias’s story is a glimpse into what DREAMers and their parents across the country are going through. We hope that Matias's compelling case can help build toward changes that will impact more people and get the relief that is needed.

With urgency,

Carlos Saavedra
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National Coordinator
United We Dream Network(UWD)
Cell:    617-459-1935
carlos@unitedwedream.org