Activist Jean Montrevil's Deportation Decried At Rally

WEST VILLAGE, NY — Hundreds of protesters rallied outside Manhattan's immigrant detention center Thursday night calling on federal officials to let immigrant-rights activist Jean Montrevil return to the United States.

The rally at the Varick Street Immigration Court came two days after Immigration and Customs Endorcement officials deported Montrevil to Haiti, sending him to the country for the first time in more than three decades.

A photo from the rally shows activists placing their hands on the federal building to show solidarity with the immigrants locked inside. Immigrant groups had also planned a rally at Foley Square on Thursday morning.

Montrevil co-founded the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. ICE agents arrested him at his Queens home on Jan. 3 and sent him to Miami for deportation. He arrived in Haiti on Tuesday.

Thursday’s protest was similar to one last week for Ravi Ragbir, another New Sanctuary Coalition co-founder whom ICE arrested Jan. 11. Immigrant-rights groups, clergy and elected officials have called for Ragbir's release.

Montrevil’s and Ragbir's allies have argued ICE was retaliating against them for their years of work protecting immigrants from detention and deportation.

Montrevil was convicted of federal drug charges in 1990 and has lived in the U.S. since 1986. He was ordered deported in 1996 but allowed to stay after finishing his 11 year prison sentence.

Montrevil has two teenaged children. His 14-year-old son, Jahsiah, started an online fundraiser to help his father start out in Haiti. He's raised more than $1,000 so far.

"I’m just trying to raise some money to help him get on his feet in a country where he has nothing," Jahsiah wrote on the page.

Ragbir was arrested just a week after Montrevil at a routine check-in with ICE. Officials planned to deport Ragbir under a 2006 judicial order, but his lawyers have challenged his detention in federal court, allowing him to stay in the U.S. in ICE custody. Federal officials plan to move him to a detention center in New York from Miami as his case proceeds.

ICE has said Ragbir has exhausted all his legal options to remain in the country legally since his 2001 federal conviction for wire fraud. He is challenging the conviction in court.

(Lead image: Jani Cauthen, the mother of Jean Montrevil's children, holds a picture of the family at a 2010 rally for Montrevil. Photo by Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)