Make Julio's Birthday Wish Come True: Stop His Deportation

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-03-27 09:34:00 UTC
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It wasn't a very happy birthday for Julio Cesar Martinez Delgado this year: on Monday, he celebrated his 19th birthday from inside the walls of an immigration detention center. He is asking for your help to make his birthday wish come true.

DREAMActivist reports that Julio was arrested last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for failure to appear in immigration court ... when he was seven years old. The injustice of deporting a youth for something that happened when he was only seven, which he clearly had no control over and was not to blame for, is inexpressible. Yet he is being deported immediately back to Honduras, a country he has little memory of and fewer connections in. These special circumstances must be taken into account when reviewing his case.

Earlier this week, DREAMActivist successfully petitioned for 18-year-old Leslie Cocche to be released from a Florida detention center. Now another student needs help. It is a travesty that a hard-working student like Julio, who is putting himself through college with his own money and active in his church, is treated as a fugitive and criminal for something that occurred when he was a small child. He identifies with our country and considers himself an American, yet our rigid, unfeeling immigration policies would dismiss him without a thought. We need to fix this system -- but right now, we need to keep Julio's life from being destroyed.

This is time sensitive -- Julio will be shipped off as soon as his travel documents are arranged -- so please act now to make Julio's birthday wish come true. Sign this petition to email the Department of Homeland Security letting them know you are appalled at the criminalization of children and asking for a stay of removal, so that Julio can get back to school, where he belongs.

Photo credit: DREAMActivist

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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