September 1, 2017

Eber Garcia Vasquez has been a private sanitation worker in New York for 26 years, and a member of Teamsters Local 813.  He provides for a family of six, but today instead of being at work or with his family, he is sitting in an immigration detention cell and could be deported to Guatemala, where he fears for his life.

The Transform Don’t Trash NYC coalition is fighting for racial, economic, and environmental justice for NYC sanitation workers.  Like Eber, most NYC private sanitation workers are immigrants.  We also know that the industry pays workers of color less, on average.  Please stand with us as we stand with Eber and the immigrants who keep our city clean.

Please help our union brother Eber by calling ICE and demanding that he be released.  A script is below.

Eber came to U.S. in the 1980s, fleeing violence in his homeland.  Several of his family members in Guatemala, including his mother, have been killed.  His wife and several children are U.S. citizens and that gives Eber a path to a Green Card, but ICE is trying to deport him before he can complete that process.

Eber’s wife and four children depend on his union job with Stericycle in New York.  His wife was in a car crash earlier this year and is now in a wheelchair.  If Eber is deported, it is going to wreak havoc on their lives.

You can help.  Please join us as we ask ICE to use their discretion to release him and help keep Eber’s family together.

Please CALL Hakeem Folajaiye, ICE Officer, at (212) 863-3452 AND Jacob Antoninis, ICE Assistant Field Office Director, at (212) 863-3437.

You can say something like:

“Eber Garcia Vasquez has been living in New York for over 20 years and he shouldn’t be separated from his family. I’m asking ICE to use discretion and not deport him. His A number is 073-538-113.” (If you get a message saying the voicemail is full, please keep trying until you can successfully leave a message.)

Read more about Eber’s story in the New York Daily News.