Members of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, as well as the Poor People’s Campaign, are protesting outside of the ICE office in Pearl.
They say Carthage resident and immigrant community leader Baldomero Orozco Juarez was detained during a routine check in at the agency.
“ICE actually let him go about a year and a half ago. His wife has had sever anxiety, she’s had two car accidents, his kids have been through this trauma already and they finally get a breather. We’re asking for him to be released. He’s not a flight risk,” says Lorena Quiroz, Founder and Director of the IAJE.
Quiroz pleaded with officials in the office to let Juarez go before the protesters were asked to leave the building. The doors to the federal agency were locked behind them, with the office later closing early for the day.
Juarez was originally deported following the 2019 ICE raids at Mississippi chicken plants, but was returned to ICE custody until the agency approved his probationary release. In that time, Quiroz said he obtained a work permit, drivers license and social security card.
Outside the ICE office in Pearl, Juarez’s wife arrived with the couple’s two children. Due to her recent injury, she says her family will have no source of income without her husband. Quiroz assisted with translation.
“It is not fair that they’re holding my husband,” says Juarez. “It’s not fair that the’re separating us. It’s not fair that they’re taking him from his children. I went to pick up my child from school because I remember the first time that they deported his father (my son) suffered a lot.”
Unless he is released, Juarez could remain detained out of state until his trial, which experts say could be more than a year away.
