Last week, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested dairy worker and Migrant Justice member Eli Calvo Cruz.  He is now being held in detention on $14,000 bond and is at risk of being deported. Eli is going in front of an immigration judge on Thursday November, 8th and needs your help to be released back to his community.

Without cause, Eli and a friend were accosted by immigration agents outside a gas station in Richford, VT. Agents arrested both, though they later were forced to release Eli's companion after confirming that he had a visa to be in the country. Eli, however, was transferred to ICE custody at the immigration detention center in Dover, NH where he now sits behind bars.

Just 30 years old, Eli has been a strong leader in his community and in Migrant Justice. In 2012 and 2013, he helped lead the successful effort to pass legislation allowing immigrant workers like himself access to driver's licenses -- an important victory for human rights in Vermont. He was a one-time member of Migrant Justice's Farmworker Coordinating Committee and participated in a farmworker community assembly in Franklin County just days before his arrest.

This is not Eli's first time being targeted by immigration agents. In a similar case of racial profiling in 2014, Eli was unjustly arrested in Vermont along with other farmworkers. At that time, however, he was ordered released from detention, and his deportation case was closed by ICE and the immigration judge, who agreed that Eli posed no danger to his community and should not be deported. ICE is now reversing this previous decision and choosing to push for Eli's continued detention and deportation.

Tell Immigration and Customs Enforcement that you oppose this unjust arrest and demand freedom for Eli!