Please contribute to Chucho’s GoFundMe page:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/n7y2x-stand-up-for-chucho
The legal fees required to successfully appeal a deportation can easily reach or exceed the $30,000 goal listed on the site.

It would be nice to blame the circumstances of Chucho’s detainment in San Juan County on the racist, and Xenophobic policies of our President and the Republican party, but for decades our immigration policies have been a problem that our politicians cannot solve. The Obama Administration deported 2.5 million people between 2009 and 2015 – this gave rise to labeling him the “Deporter in Chief.”

 
However, Republican rhetoric currently appeals to poor and working class people by fomenting the same fear and hatred of “The Other” that the fascist Nazis did in the 1930s and 1940s. This Republican strategy is working, in part because the Democrats have previously chosen to ignore the needs of large swaths of poor and working class people. This raises questions about the role of government, democracy and basic human compassion – especially when it hits close to home.

Hence the reference to German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous poem about the Holocaust:

 
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Where do we draw the line? Let’s stand up for Chucho, and work towards implementing rational, humane immigration policies that do not tear families apart – families like Chucho’s who has a wife, Leslin, and four children.

 
Please also consider attending “Experts on Immigration and Refugee Policy to Speak,” at the Orcas Island Grange on Tuesday July 30 from 5-7pm. Sliding scale admission from $10-$25. There will be a donation jar there for Chucho.

References:
GoFundMe site for Chucho
https://www.gofundme.com/f/n7y2x-stand-up-for-chucho

Article about Chucho’s detainment from “The Sounder”
https://www.islandssounder.com/news/orcas-resident-jesus-coro-detained-by-ice/