"DO NOT SEPARATE FAMILIES"

Yesterday, the annual feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, about 200 of us gathered for an interfaith prayer service at St. Monica's church here on Tucson's south side. Then we all walked three miles through the drizzle to the federal immigration enforcement office near the airport. The theme of our service and march was quite clear on signs and buttons: DO NOT SEPARATE FAMILIES and DEPORTATION DESTROYS OUR FAMILIES. We all stood together outside the ICE office while attorney Margo Cowan delivered paperwork requesting a stay of deportation for 50 people in accord with the new approach announced by the Obama Administration a half year ago. (The 50 include parents of U.S. citizen children, spouses of U.S. citizens and six families with multiple members facing deportation,)

In the meantime, deportation buses continue to run to the border night after night, even when it is literally freezing. While three of us were documenting bus arrivals at Nogales just before midnight last Tuesday, I took this photo one block north of the Port of Entry. Within 15 minutes, another bus arrived with yet more deportees.