PHOTOS: Two arrested protesting deportation at Sen. Hagan's office

Two immigration activists connected to the NC Dream Team were arrested Thursday for refusing to leave US Sen. Kay Hagan's Greensboro office. The two women were protesting the scheduled deportation of single mother Maria Juana Perez, pictured in the center (in a chair wearing a dark coat).

Perez, who lives in Greensboro, has two young daughters (also pictured) who are US citizens. She was arrested for driving without a license and has been in the country since 2000.

Over 20 supporters, including her sister (the woman in blue seated right) assembled at Hagan's office, some meeting with her staff and others holding banners outside. Perez is scheduled for deportation to Mexico on Dec. 27, two days after Christmas — which coincidentally is her birthday.

The two activists who were arrested around 6:50 pm did so as an act of civil disobedience while supporters and reporters looked on. Below, Elisa Benitez can be seen in red through the window in Hagan's office while a police officer (in yellow) talks to the other Dreamer being arrested. More coverage in the next issue of YES! Weekly, available in print and online Wednesday.

Photos and reporting by Eric Ginsburg.

Dream Team vs. Folwell in playground fight

The NC Dream Team steps up its rhetoric against NC Rep. Dale Folwell, following a confrontation at the General Assembly last week.

Representative Dale Folwell of Forsyth chose to attack children by introducing HB 744. This bill serves no other purpose than to discourage parents from enrolling their children in public school by forcing them to reveal their child’s status to educators. For this reason, we have chosen to name him “North Carolina’s biggest school bully."

Full press release after jump:

Motive behind HB 744 is to prevent student enrollment
After bill and altercation at NCGA, NC DREAM Team declares Folwell “NC’s biggest school bully”
 
RALEIGH — Representative Dale Folwell of Forsyth chose to attack children by introducing HB 744. This bill serves no other purpose than to discourage parents from enrolling their children in public school by forcing them to reveal their child’s status to educators. For this reason, we have chosen to name him “North Carolina’s biggest school bully.”
 
Although supporters of HB 744 emphasize that it will not prevent undocumented students from attending school outright, it is clear that is their goal. As Folwell plainly acknowledged, "The main thing I want is to answer the question: What policies are there at the state level that are making North Carolina a magnet for illegal immigration?" […] "I want to demagnetize this state."(Bertrand M. Gutierrez, "Illegal Students Targeted," Winston-Salem Journal, June 1, 2011).
 
The education of immigrants — no matter their status — is not a state policy, but a federally protected right. Folwell has attempted to undermine this right six times as a legislator. Knowing will not “demagnetize” the state, so there is no point in making educators spend their precious time collecting it. Not educating undocumented immigrants will create an uneducated and criminalized subclass living within the state.
 
Completely in line with being a school bully, Folwell physically confronted a member of the NC DREAM Team at the General Assembly. In response to a press release in which we called supporters of this bill “unprincipled cowards,” Folwell tracked down one of our members who spoke on HB 744 the previous day to confront him.
 
“You don’t have the balls to call me a coward to my face, do you?” Folwell said, exasperated. “I want to talk to you man to man.” Folwell also demanded the home addresses of everyone who opposed the bill.
 
This is the behavior and agenda of a bully, not the speaker pro tem of the NC House. We need legislators to act and legislate thoughtfully.