Houston students support Arizona struggle

Photo: www.doscentavos.net

Immigrant students and their supporters in Houston held a press conference and demonstration outside the federal building in solidarity with students arrested four days earlier in Arizona. Organized by FIEL, Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha, they demanded Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison support the DREAM [“Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors”] Act.

Wearing caps and gowns and carrying their college diplomas, the students protested the unfairness of earning a college degree in the U.S. but not being allowed to work. On May 17, four students held a sit-in inside the Tucson, Ariz., office of Sen. John McCain to pressure him to back the DREAM Act, which would grant permanent citizenship to undocumented workers’ children if they completed two years of college.

Escalating their tactics, the student activists in Arizona risked deportation to Mexico and Iran. Three of the Arizona students were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after all of them spent the night in jail.