(img via Facebook: Alejandro Cano)

Labor and immigrant groups in Home Gardens/Corona, California held a roadside news conference to protest the round up of day laborers by the Border Patrol. The supporters stood near a place where about twenty day laborers would gather each day to seek jobs from potential employers.

According to Darrel Santschi from the Press Enterprise, 

Speakers, including an immigrant in the process of seeking legal resident status, alleged that Border Patrol agents based in Murrieta have rounded up about 25 suspected undocumented immigrants over the last two weeks.

The protestors state that the actions that the Border Patrol have taken go against Obama's priorities to focus on undocumented immigrants who are a threat to national security, instead of the hard working laborers who are trying to peacefully earn a living. 

Stated in a prese release from Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC) 

'They came into my workplace,'said Meinardo M., who was detained on the 11 th prior to a raid on the Home Gardens day workers. 'They asked me for my documents, and when I couldn’t show them any, they loaded me into the van.'

Meinardo has lived in the United States for 20 years,his children are citizens and has no criminal record. Yet, according to the guidelines put inorder by the ICE director John Marton, Meinardo should have been the last on the list for deportation. The Border Patrol continues to dismiss these guidelines and continues to round up and deport hard working immigrants.

Santschi reports Executive Director of San Bernardino Community Services Center Emilio Amaya saying that the purpose of this demonstration was to let the public know about the raids and to stop harassment of innocent immigrant workers.