News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Nov. 1, 2013: A Panama-born, Brooklyn church Bishop was among several arrested in New York this week in a civil disobedience exercise at the Varick Street Detention Center in Lower Manhattan.
Bishop Orlando Findlayter, Senior Pastor of the New Hope Christian Fellowship church and chairman of the Churches United to Save and Heal (CUSH), was arrested along with nine other immigrant advocates on Tuesday, October 29th in a protest call for immigration reform organized by the New York Immigration Coalition.
The “Varick 10” was arrested for blocking traffic outside of the Varick Street Detention Center, where they were joined by one hundred supporters who flooded the sidewalks outside of the center demanding that Speaker Boehner and the House GOP stop dragging their feet and put an immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship to a vote “now.”
Others arrested were Angela Fernandez, board member of New York Immigration Coalition and executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights; Ariana Rosas, organizer, New York Immigration Coalition; Sister Susan Wilcox; Reverend Chloe Breyer, executive director, The Interfaith Center of New York; Ellen Greely, The Interfaith Center of New York, Angelica Clarke, New York Students Rising; Mazeda Uddin, national women’s coordinator, Alliance of South Asian American Labor (ASAAL); Felix Cepeda and Sarah Melissa Duncan.
The group says House leaders sit idly by, refusing to move an immigration reform bill with a path to citizenship to the floor for a vote while 1,100 people are deported daily.
