This is a piece of opinion.
What happened to our strategy of solely targeting gang members and criminals? Surprise, surprise. It was simply another falsehood.
ICE doesn’t have time to pick and choose who gets their life placed on ice. Their manager set a daily quota of 3,000 arrests for them to accomplish. Gather them up and store them. Later, sort them out… or not.
According to reports, Giovanna Hernandez-Martinez is a well-liked social worker who supports immigrant children and is a role model in her community in Leeds. She had no past issues until August 5th, when she was stopped for speeding.
She is currently incarcerated at an ICE facility in Louisiana. Her friends and family are inconsolable.
Giovanna doesn’t commit crimes. Release her.
Call for Giovanna Hernandez-Martinez’s release.
Quotes from Alabama Reflector Reports and AL.com:
Coverage of Giovanna Martinez
Gina Martinez, Giovanna’s mother, stated last Sunday, with the assistance of a translator, “All of our family is here, all of her siblings, she has built her education here, and she has all of her friends here.”
According to her family, Giovanna has been working toward obtaining her citizenship since her parents brought her and her siblings to the United States from Mexico in 2008 when she was seven years old.
Since ICE detained Giovanna Martinez, numerous organizations and groups have voiced their support for her.
She is a role model and a valued community partner, according to a statement released last week by the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama. Giovanna Martinez helps young people in Alabama through her consulting company, Juntos Coaching and Consulting.
Janet Murgu, the president and CEO of UnidosUS, said in a statement on Friday that this is just another instance of the administration’s indiscriminate immigration enforcement activities.
They are detaining a dedicated, well-liked community member rather than pursuing the worst of the worst.
Martinez recently graduated from Jacksonville State University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work.
She spent a lot of time assisting immigrant youngsters in the metro region with their post-high school plans.
Martinez’s fellow JSU student Emily Barfield has also written a petition calling for her release.
What prevented her from simply obtaining citizenship? “You may wonder,” Barfield stated in a Facebook post.
In actuality, it’s not that easy. Her family made an attempt and was repeatedly defrauded in the process. As long as I’ve known her, she has, nevertheless, had documents proving that she was pursuing citizenship. She was only able to attend JSU in that manner.
As of right now, the petition has nearly 20,000 signatures.
In its release on Thursday, HICA echoed the calls for Martinez’s release.
It says, “We implore immigration officials to take into account her longstanding contributions and act with humanity and fairness.”
In the communities that Giovanna so devotedly serves, her presence and voice are essential.
Here are some quotes from a column written by Josh Moon, a political reporter from Alabama:
Why don’t they simply enter this country legally?
According to Emily Barfield, Gio spent the most of her adult life working to achieve her legal status. For someone like her, the process is simply very complex.
The real procedure, which often takes over ten years and entails paperwork, background checks, and meetings with numerous agencies and individuals, is very complicated.
Barfield claims that (Gio) was brought to this country at the age of seven. The most significant factor, however, is that she was brought here many months too late to qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals funding. She wouldn’t have had to worry about her legal status a few months prior.
Hernandez, who is aware that she is not covered by DACA, probably has been under the impression for a number of years that she has nothing to worry about as long as she complied with the law, stayed out of trouble, and was a contributing member of society.
Go here to read Moon’s whole column.
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The cartoonist for AL.com and Alabama Media Group is JD Crowe. In 2020, he was the recipient of the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons. The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists presented him with the Rex Babin Memorial Award for state and local cartoons in 2018. Follow JD on Instagram at @JDCrowepix, Twitter at @Crowejaman, and Facebook. Contact him at [email protected].
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