Local Church Joins Hunger Strike to Protest Deportations

St. Margaret’s Church of Scotland on Speedwell Avenue is joining a national campaign to stop deportation of undocumented people by hosting a vigil and hunger strike this week.

The fast began on Monday and will end Friday with a special vigil for the children ( “vigilio de los Ninos”) recognizing the number of children separated from their parents by deportation.

"We need to stop these deportations and protect our families and keep them together. So many people are suffering, especially the children. A nation like ours should provide a better example for future generations when it comes to family values,” “ said Diana Mejia, co-founder of Wind of the Spirit, a Morristown based immigrant rights group that helped organize the event.

About 30 participants start the day with an 8 a.m. mass at the church and come together at 7 p.m. for prayer and Bible reading led by Maria Eugenia Vargas. On Wednesday, Salvador Reza, a national spokesman for NDLON (National Day Labor Organizing Network) will speak on at WotS headquarters in Morristown.

The chain fast began May 1 in Mountainview, CA and has been taken up on a weekly basis in states as far flung as Texas, Georgia and Virginia. Next week, for instance, there will be a vigil in Culmore, Va. The first week in July one is scheduled for the Pueblo sin Fronteras in Dallas and the week after that on Long Island, according to a list provided by Vargas.

“Families are being separated,” said Omar Henriquez, an NDLON official in New York. “You have to do something about it.”

In New Jersey, stories of ankle bracelets and deportations continue to spread fear in the immigrant community, according to the church. Those stories are being told at the vigils and fasts this week

“In four years, Mr. Obama’s administration has deported as many illegal immigrants as the administration of George W. Bush did in his two terms, largely by embracing, expanding and refining Bush-era programs to find people and send them home. By the end of this year, deportations under Mr. Obama are on track to reach two million, or nearly the same number of deportations in the United States from 1892 to 1997“,” according to the New York Times (Feb. 22, 2013). “Since 2010, the government has deported more than 200,000 parents of children who are United States citizens, according to a recent report."