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Powerful Images Of DREAMers Blocking A Bus To Stop The Deportation Of Undocumented Immigrants

Immigration activists from the Arizona Dream Act Coalition were holding a vigil outside a Phoenix immigrant detention center when a bus filled with immigrants tried to leave the facility.

The DREAMers, undocumented youth brought to the country as children, and their mothers, ran towards the bus.

“It was weird, all of the families and moms everybody started running to get in front of the bus,” high-profile DREAMer, Erika Andiola, who was at the vigil, told BuzzFeed.

They surrounded the bus and didn’t let it go anywhere. 

Many of them fell to their knees in prayer while the bus flashed its lights in their faces. 

“There were people inside,” Andiola says. “Moms got on their knees and started praying.”

Photos were taken of prisoners inside the bus. A man held up his hands revealing he was chained.

Andiola, who’s mom was nearly deported earlier this year, before receiving prosecutorial discretion, couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Seeing us chanting they started raising their arms and legs to show us their chains. My mom told me they chained her too but I didn’t think they were such big chains.”

Another woman wept while praying and waving to the DREAMers.

The standoff lasted for hours. Andiola says they were supposed to leave at 9 p.m. but stayed five hours longer.

Two DREAMers were arrested but later released. 

The standoff lasted for five hours before the bus retreated back into the Phoenix detention center.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was contacted for a statement on the incident but did not respond.