Around 3:30pm, several dozen activists marched to the corner of East 5th and College Street in Charlotte, North Carolina, just blocks from where the DNC was being held, and blocked the intersection to protest President Obama's deportation policy. They unfurled a banner that read "Sin Papeles, Sin Miedo" ("no papers, no fear") laid it on the street, and began chanting, singing and telling their stories. Within the hour, 10 undocumented people were taken into police custody. They were released Wednesday morning with a charge of impeding traffic, a misdemeanor. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official was contacted about the case, but decided not to pursue steps toward deportation.
The No Papers, No Fear tour – known on social media as the UnDocuBus – has been traveling throughout the South and Southwestern United States to bring awareness to the terror that undocumented people live with every day. States like Arizona and villains like Sheriff Joe Arpaio have gained notoriety for their brutal treatment of immigrants, but much of the tour's focus has been on President Obama and his yet unfinished legacy on deportation.
Unzueta, 28, who is undocumented, was arrested in Washington, DC, at an action earlier this year pressuring President Obama to pass the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act, which has not been signed into law, has four basic requirements that, if met, allow undocumented children to gain full citizenship, according to DreamActivist.org: 1) that you entered the country before age 16; 2) you graduate from high school or get a GED; 3) have no criminal record; and 4) have at least five years of continuous presence in the U.S.
On Tuesday, Unzueta's mother, father and younger sister were arrested in the planned civil disobedience.
Another mother and daughter were arrested Tuesday afternoon as well. As they were led to the police van, the daughter, a young woman in her mid-20s, shouted, "Organize!" She beamed as she shouted to the crowd to pressure Obama to stop his record pace of deportations, her mother, also handcuffed, just a few feet in front of her. Despite the many arrests that have occurred related to the No Papers, No Fear campaign, none have resulted in deportation. Tania Unzueta and others say that getting arrested deliberately, with the community ready to take action, is safer than an anonymous arrest – a threat undocumented immigrants face on a daily basis.
Section 287(g), enacted in 1996 but largely unimplemented until after 9/11, "allows the federal government to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, allowing them to deputize local officials to enforce federal immigration law," according to a report by the National Council of La Raza. The Obama administration took the enforcement one step further with a program known as Secure Communities, whose goal ostensibly was to target and deport the most dangerous criminals. Many activists think this program has led to an increase in racial profiling and demonizing jailed undocumented immigrants, regardless of the specifics of their cases.
The president's executive order to defer action for those who would qualify for the DREAM Act was seen as a major victory, one that many on the UnDocuBus organized and went to jail for, but they say the next step is opening the same avenues to the parents who are excluded from the DREAM Act. And one potential negative consequence of the act is that it could actually increase the number of adults who are deported, if the Obama administration wants to keep its numbers high.
Once an arrest happens, the UnDocuBus people begin engaging the community by calling the local precincts, gathering signatures and getting their message out through traditional and social media. In this case, ICE didn't pursue deportation, giving more evidence to the activists' argument that their strategies are working.