AÚN QUEDA TIEMPO

For immediate release // excuse cross-posting Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Contact: Michele Rudy, 857-919-3574 ICE Appeals Judge’s Decision to Free Civil Rights Leader From Detention Agency Goes to Extremes in Retaliation Against Arizona Father What: Rally to Free Ardani Rosales When: Today, Wednesday, May 21 at 4:00pm Where: Phoenix ICE Field Office, 2035 N. Central Ave. Who: Naira Zapata, Ardani’s wife and her two young children, ADAC, Puente, and allies As the President is calling for “more humane” immigration enforcement, his agency is demonstrating ever more cruelty, highlighting further the need for the President to act to turn his record around. After being granted release on bond by an immigration judge on Monday, Ardani Rosales was preparing to reunite with his family within a few hours when the Department of Homeland Security appealed his bond and got an emergency stay of the judge’s order. AZ ICE Field Office Director Jon Gurule advised the appeal, retaliating against the civil rights organizing of Ardani, his family, and his community of supporters. Naira Zapata, Ardani’s wife, was on hunger strike in front of the White House for her husband's release early last month. She says, “Just as we were making a sign that said ‘Welcome Home Daddy,’ I received a call from our lawyer to say that ICE had appealed and my husband would not be released. That destroyed me. I kept asking, ‘Why? Why would they do this to us?’ It seems like their pleasure is seeing us suffer.” Ray Ybarra Maldonado, Ardani’s lawyer, says, “It is absolutely outrageous and insane for the government to be going this far to keep someone who has no criminal record, who has 2 young U.S. citizen children, away from his family.” Video of Naira’s response available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViknCK7T0JI Petition to ICE to drop the appeal on Ardani’s bond: http://bit.ly/let-ardani-go ###