nothin Carlos Flees The Gangs | New Haven Independent

Carlos Flees The Gangs

Thomas MacMillan Photo

Cross student Carlos Ventura Escalante tells his story at the rally.

Placard-wielding protesters filled the front steps of New Haven’s federal court building to spread a message: The unaccompanied children coming over the Mexican border aren’t freeloaders; they’re refugees.

Carlos Ventura Escalante (pictured), a 17-year-old from Guatemala, conveyed that message with his own personal story. Fleeing drug gangs in his hometown, he undertook a perilous journey across several borders, enduring hunger and cold and being held hostage for a time by a coyote,” he said.

Carlos, now a student at Wilbur Cross High School, was one of dozens of activists and immigrants who rallied Thursday evening at the courthouse on Church Street. Protesters called on President Obama and the federal government to reduce deportations by adopting new immigration policies, particularly regarding children and families.

The protest comes amid a surge of unaccompanied Central American minors crossing the Mexican border. Protesters denounced Obama’s request for $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis by setting up new detention facilities, conduct aerial surveillance of the border, and hire more immigration judges and border patrol agents.

The mass exodus” from Central America resulted from violence and poverty, conditions the U.S. government played a role in creating by supporting oppressive regimes and creating crippling trade agreements, argued Evelyn Nunez (pictured), a member of Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA).

Obama’s $3.7 billion request is to speed up deportations,” she said. We cannot let that happen.”

Obama has deported more immigrants than any other president, more than 2 million.

I’m asking Obama to stop deportations,” said Josemaria Islas (pictured), the New Havener whose detention by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (iCE) agency drew protest from activists and public officials. The deportation proceedings against him are currently stayed.

The children deserve justice, too,” he said.

Nunez read off a list of actions that Obama should take to immediately take to improve immigration policy. Among them, revise ICE’s enforcement priorities to exclude children and people with strong community ties; end the mass incarceration of immigrants, particularly by private prison companies; help reunite families by allowing previously deported immigrants to return for humanitarian reasons.

Ni una mas deportación!” the crowd chanted. Not one more deportation!”

After the rally, Carlos spoke about his experience as a teenage immigrant, crossing the U.S. border illegally.

Carlos said he comes from San Marcos, in the western part of Guatemala, where mining companies have poisoned the drinking water. Combined with a drought, a lot of people are suffering.” Many children suffer domestic violence, he said.

He said he was also facing danger from gangs, known as maras.”

They were forcing me to join their gang and sell drugs and give them money,” he said. They told me they would kill me and hurt my family. That’s why I came.” (Click here for a story about how his story mirrors those of other children crossing the U.S. border.)

Carlos left Guatemala and traveled through Mexico to the border. He hired a coyote” — someone paid to help immigrants cross illegally — to get him across. He had to endure days without food, and freezing water temperatures as he crossed the Rio Grande.

It was a type of suffering you can’t imagine,” he said.

Then the coyote demanded $6,000. He said if I didn’t pay he would sell me to a different country,” Carlos said. I was scared.”

Eventually, Carlos’ brother, a landscaper who lives in New Haven, was able to borrow money from an employer, a debt he’s still paying off. Carlos arrived in New Haven in March.

We are not criminals,” Carlos said of himself and other young people fleeing desperate circumstance to come to the U.S.

Kids are not coming just because they want to, said Yazmin Rodriguez, an immigration lawyer. They’re coming because they have no other option. Sending them back is a grave injustice.”

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