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Indybay Feature

Free Pancho || #OO Protester Faces ICE Disappearance

by Michael Siegel
Pancho was meditating at Occupy Oakland when police arrested him and entered him into a federal database. Now the District Attorney has dropped charges and ICE has 48 hours to claim him. Please help us lobby federal officials and demand that ICE leave him alone. Free Pancho!
Dear comrades,

Our friend Pancho aka Francisco Ramos Stierle is facing deportation by ICE following his arrest at Monday's Occupy Oakland raid. Today the district attorney dropped all criminal charges against Pancho. But, under the federal immigration law, the Alameda County will continue to hold Pancho for up to 48 hours -- giving ICE an opportunity to pick him up and disappear him from our community.

To help free Pancho, the main strategy is to place pressure on local U.S. Senators and Representatives. In particular, the focus is to lobby Senators Feinstein and Boxer as well as Representatives Pelosi and Barbara Lee. So far, Barbara Lee is supporting this work -- so the focus is mainly on the two Senators.

The demand to these offices is that (1) they directly contact ICE and ask that ICE not pick up Pancho (they have the discretion to not do so) and (2) that they sponsor a "private bill" to get Pancho released.

Given that ICE can pick up Pancho within 48 hours, any work should be done as soon as possible.

For the SF Chronicle article on this, see: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/15/BAGC1LVES1.DTL

For the petition demanding Pancho's release (4600 signatures and growing), see: http://www.change.org/petitions/free-pancho-now

For more background info on Pancho, see: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1238223/Pancho%20Letter%2011_16.pdf

Dianne Feinstein
Phone: (415) 393-0707
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/state-offices

Barbara Boxer
(510) 286-8537
http://boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/offices/sanfrancisco.cfm

Nancy Pelosi
Phone: (415) 556-4862
http://pelosi.house.gov/contact/write-or-phone-my-offices.shtml

Barbara Lee (to thank her for her support so far, and urge her on)
Phone: (510) 763-0370
More info: http://lee.house.gov/e-mail-congresswoman-lee/

Please let me know if you want to follow up on any of this.

In solidarity,

Michael Siegel
michaeljwsiegel [at] gmail.com
§Update: ICE has claimed Pancho
by Michael SIegel
Folks, now is the time to call your federal representatives. ICE claimed Pancho from the Alameda County jail this morning. Don't let him disappear into the immigration detention system!
§Pancho Released
by Michael
Thanks to all who helped put pressure on ICE today. They released Pancho without bail or GPS monitoring. He has a court date in the future, not yet announced.
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Occupier
Everyone, please call Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee NOW (at: (510) 763-0370 ) to urge her to write a "private bill" to free Pancho (also known as "Francisco Ramos Stierle")! If you have the time, please also call Barbara Boxer, and perhaps Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi too. Our best chance of freeing Pancho is to lobby Barbara Lee to free him, so please be sure to at least call her!

And please ask others to call Barbara Lee too!!
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