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{ LINK: Stop the Deportation of Orfilia Sagastume Reyes - Mother of U.S. Citizen [petition/phone call] }

please sign the petition and make the call if you can, and please pass this around:

President Obama continues to deport the parents of U.S. citizens, contrary to the prosecutorial discretion memos issued last year. 

Call ICE - John Morton @ 202.732.3000

Sample Script: “Hi, I was calling to ask that the deportation of Orfilia Sagastume-Reyes (A #073 189 266) be stopped. Orfilia has been living in the United States for the past 22 years and is the mother of a U.S. citizen. She is eligible for adjustment of status if ICE lifts her deportation order. According to the Morton Memo, Orfilia is not a priority for deportation and should be allowed to stay. Don’t deport Orfilia - lift her deportation order and allow her to stay in the U.S.”

PLEASE SHARE THIS PETITION AND ACTION ALERT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

Orfilia Sagastume-Reyes fled from Guatemala to the United States with her family
in October 1990. She has never left. Orfilia’s family in Guatemala was targeted because of her father’s involvement with the Guatemalan government. Her brother was assassinated and Orfilia personally received death threats. In 1993, Orfilia applied for asylum in the United States. The asylum office referred her case to the Atlanta Immigration Court.

Unfortunately, based on the erroneous advice by previous counsel, Orfilia and her family withdrew their asylum application. The attorney told Orfilia that her asylum application would likely be denied and that there was a chance that the judge would send her and her children to jail if she did not withdraw the application. Out of fear of her children going to jail, Orfilia withdrew her asylum application and accepted an order of Voluntary Departure in February 2000.

In the last few months, Orfilia’s current lawyers have asked Atlanta OCC twice to join a motion to reopen. Both requests were refused. If Orfilia’s case is not reopened very soon, ICE will deport her to Guatemala. Orfilia 15-year-old son, Fredi Reyes, who is a United States citizen, will very likely have to go to Guatemala with Orfilia.

Fredi Reyes: “I’m a 15-Year-Old U.S. Citizen and I’m Facing Deportation”, posted on DreamActivist.org (link):

This email was sent to me by Fredd Reyes, who we helped to get out of detention in Thanksgiving of 2010. Ever since then, Fredd and his mom have been under constant supervision by ICE and his mom recently received a “bag and baggage” letter.  This was written by Fredi Reyes, his younger brother.

My name is Fredi Reyes. I am a 15-year old United States citizen, born in New York on November 23, 1996. I’m a freshman high school student at East Davidson High School and I’m currently undergoing the worst crisis of my life. This isn’t some teenage fit over popularity or how good I look, or the clothes I wear. Along with my mother, I am facing deportation from my only home.

It has been well over a year since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) came to my house and arrested my brother. My family came to the United States fleeing from the country of Guatemala, which at the time was in terrible condition. Guerillas had threatened to kill my mother after assassinating her brother. Fleeing for her life, my mother reached the United States and applied for asylum. But she was told that if she did not withdraw her application, she would need to go to jail. Fearful that my older brother and I would be put into jail or separated from her, my mother withdrew her application and she was told to depart the country.

I sat in a room listening to ICE interrogate my mom and brother, saying that there was no hope for us, so many thoughts were running through my head. Confusion, helplessness, and anger completely numbed my body. Two questions kept running through my mind: Where do I stand in all of this? And what will become of me?

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