Rally and March in Support of Teen Facing Deportation

CHARLOTTE, NC – More than a hundred people rallied in Uptown Saturday demanding the release of Yefri Sorto-Hernandez, a CMS student facing deportation.

“It’s difficult because we know if Yefri is going back there, we know we lost him already,” says Yefri’s cousin Joel Velasquez. “These people are not criminals or nothing. They’re people who are trying to build roots here,” he says.

The group marched three miles from South End to the Government Center in support of the teen and others from North Carolina who are being detained.

Family members say Sorto-Hernandez arrived in Charlotte from El Salvador in 2014 as part of a wave of minors who came into the country from Central America.

Two years ago, the White House expanded custom agents power, giving them the ability to ask local police to hold undocumented immigrants for pickup, even if they don’t have serious criminal records or ties to terrorism.

The expanded powers target anyone who arrived illegally after January 1st 2014, those who have overstayed their visas, and those that have ignored recent deportation orders from courts.

“This kid was going to school. Getting good grades and everything,” says Bryon Martinez, with Unidos We Stand.

Martinez says he visited Sorto-Hernandez at the detention center. “You could see the fear, you could see the fear in his eyes. It’s a young kid,” he says.

For now family and friends hope they can convince a judge to release Sorto-Hernandez after an appeal.