‘No courage, no change’

It was a courageous act of solidarity. Two undocumented students risked deportation at a “Coming Out of the Shadows” action here on March 14 to demand the release of a fellow undocumented immigrant. They were arrested for blocking traffic in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Philadelphia.

The protest was organized by DreamActivists/PA as part of a national week of action called by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance. Around 100 undocumented students and their supporters took a stand against deportations that are tearing apart families and communities.

During a rally in Love Park and the march that followed, they chanted, “No courage, no change,” “Education, not deportation” and “Immigrants are fighting here, no papers, no fear!”

Wearing T-shirts bearing the day’s popular slogan of “Undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic,” Tania Chairez, 19, a University of Pennsylvania sophomore whose family immigrated from Mexico, and Jessica Hyejin Lee, 20, a Bryn Mawr College junior whose family came from South Korea, blocked traffic for more than an hour. They sat atop two large banners — one with the same message as their shirts, the second reading, “Coming out of the shadows.”

Before their arrests, Chairez and Lee entered the ICE building and presented a letter to Field Office Director Thomas Becker demanding the release of Miguel Orellana Garcia, a DREAMer from Pennsylvania who has been held in the York Detention Center for eight months. Born in El Salvador, Orellana lived in Allentown, Pa., for 16 years. He has a young family to support, including a U.S.-born fiancée and two young children. If he is sent back to El Salvador, Orellana could be killed.

The young women took turns relaying stories of their parents’ struggles to raise their families under the constant fear of deportation and separation. They told how their undocumented status impacted their opportunities to advance their education.

Chairez spoke of the hurt from hearing racial slurs directed against her family as a young child. Lee spoke of her constant fear while driving in the family car that they would be pulled over by police and their status revealed.

The two women also recorded video testimonies before the demonstration that start, “If you are seeing this, it is because I have been arrested.”

In her video, Chairez speaks of growing up seeing “a lot of attacks on my family just because of the color of their skin, not because anyone knew about their status.” Chairez expressed the hope that her actions would “help other undocumented youth feel empowered and … to stop being afraid. It is better to be publicly undocumented where you have the support group, where people can stand up for each other, than to sit at home in fear.”

Lee states that she “risked arrest and deportation because I felt the need for my community to be empowered. A lot of high school youth are uncertain about their futures because they are undocumented. I see a lot of fear among adults who don’t feel safe in their communities because of their status.

“I thought I was the only undocumented person in my neighborhood,” she continued. “I couldn’t explain to my friends why I couldn’t drive or why I was having a hard time getting accepted into college. It is important for undocumented youth to not feel stigmatized by our status. We are the same as anyone else in America. We need to show the undocumented communities that it is O.K. to come out and be leaders for human rights in this country.”

Fortunately, both Chairez and Lee were released by Philadelphia police the next day. ICE did not get involved. Their videos are available on YouTube.