David E. Early
Mercury News
March 14, 2014
Amid the noisy cultural and political warfare waged over immigration reform, a quieter but no less compelling bit of protest has emerged.
This week, about 30 people — most of them Latin-Americans who had been previously deported from the U.S. after living here for years — marched to the Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego County and told border inspectors they wanted asylum. The individuals were then taken to a detention center, where their fate now rests with an immigration judge.
Part of a new crusade called “Bring Them Home,” the action is aimed at heaping negative attention on the Obama administration’s deportation policy, which activists say is tearing apart the families of many otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants. The protest comes at a critical juncture, when comprehensive immigration reform — which would grant most illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship — has stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives after passing the Senate last summer.
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