Roxana Orellana Santos Roxana Orellana Santos
Frederick, MD Roxana Santos is a current day civil rights hero. Like Rosa Parks, she has refused to take racially motivated disparate treatment sitting down.
October 7, 2008 she was sitting peacefully on a curbside, having lunch across from her job in a spot overlooking a duck pond. But, two officers from the Frederick County Police decided that, as a Latina, she was not entitled to sit there peacefully but rather should be subjected to questioning about her immigration status. Thus it happened that, without evidence of any wrong-doing, having identified herself with a foreign passport, they proceeded to place her under arrest and she was subjected to a harrowing 45 days of incarceration, separated from her family and an infant she was still breast feeding. Rather than humbly accept a path to deportation, initiated without probable cause, Roxana has fought back. On November 10, 2009, she filed a civil action against the Frederick County Police for wrongful arrest based on racial profiling and in violation of her civil rights. Simultaneously, battling against deportation proceedings, Roxana has thus far managed to remain in the US to fight her civil rights battle. Now that the case has overcome initial legal challenges; ICE has demanded her departure from the U.S. by September 30, under threat of removal. Despite the fact that she clearly fits the criteria detailed by the Obama administration for deferred action through prosecutorial discretion: a phantom form of relief that sounds great but that no one, not even someone as clearly worthy as Roxana has been able to access.
“I am afraid that I will not be able to see my children grow up in the country they call home…” Roxana Orellana Santos.