US: Children call for end to immigration raids

It has been two months since Katherine Figueroa has shared a meal with her parents. Both of them are undocumented workers that were arrested in a workplace raid last June by Maricopa County Sheriff's Office here. While President Barack Obama set forth new federal guidelines to focus on employers that break the law by hiring undocumented workers, local authorities in Maricopa County are going in the opposite direction - increasing the crackdown on employees. Figueroa, a 9 year-old U.S. citizen marched Aug. 7 with dozens of other children to call for an end to the raids that are separating families. Since 2008, deputy sheriffs conducted 22 raids and arrested 264 workers. To calls of "Obama, Obama we want our parents back," the children walked in the hot Arizona summer from the jail were their parents are detained to the offices of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in downtown Phoenix. "He needs to stop the raids, is not fair what he's doing to people," said Figueroa who held a cardboard sign with the shape of a colourful orange and black butterfly. The Monarch butterfly - whose migration across Mexico and the U.S. is necessary for its survival - was the theme of the march. "I want to tell Sheriff Joe Arpaio to let my parents alone and let them free. And get the people that are working out, and [instead] get the people that are killing others and robbing," she added. Figueroa was playing at an aunt's house with a friend when she overheard the news of a raid in a carwash on TV. She ran to see the images and saw her father handcuffed with plastic zip ties. It broke her heart.