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RECAP: Why Immigrant Rights Matter to Us All

Staff | Published on 4/16/2026

RECAP of the April 8th Hot Topics: Immigrant Rights
It was another full house of Leaguers and supporters!

Expanding rights for one group almost always strengthens protections for everyone else. When due process, workplace protections or freedom from discrimination are upheld for immigrants, those same legal and social norms become harder to erode for citizens too. It’s a rising‑tide effect. On the other hand, we have watched deportation efforts in Minneapolis and elsewhere, how immigrant rights were being violated and then how quickly the rights of American citizens were violated when they protested the government's actions. When rights are denied for one group, all citizens' rights are eroded.

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REVIEW

Why Immigrant Rights Matter to Us All

By Judi Hayes

Quietly and steadily, Florida has become the nation’s leader in immigration arrests. Why is that? Florida has taken an aggressive approach to deportation and has deputized multiple state agencies like the Highway Patrol and Fish and Wildlife officers with authority to make immigration arrests. State law also requires local officials and sheriff’s offices to cooperate with deportation efforts. And it has resulted in many arrests of immigrants who have no criminal history or have committed only minor offenses. Tactics used against immigrants today may be used against citizens tomorrow. We have watched it happen in Minneapolis, on the West Coast and elsewhere.

At the start of the panel discussion, a young LWVOC member shared that her partner, a college student at Valencia, working two jobs and with no criminal record, was detained by ICE recently. He came here from Venezuela in 2021, where he had been arrested and tortured. ICE agents called him a criminal and illegal and pressured him to self-deport, she said. He was sent to the Krome detention center in Miami, spent six days there and has been returned home through a difficult process. The family was traumatized.

Pastor Sarah Robinson with Orlando Singing Resistance led the audience in a beautiful rendition of “We Are Here,” and co-president Jane Hursh introduced moderator Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez, an assistant professor at Barry University School of Law. She created and currently directs a new Immigration Clinic and teaches immigration law.

Panelists included Josephine Arroyo of the Arroyo Law Firm, has served as a volunteer attorney for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition; Ryan Gillespie, a government reporter at the Orlando Sentinel who has reported recently on immigration, and Ericka Gómez-Tejada, organizing director for the Hope CommUnity Center and also coordinator of Immigrants Are Welcome Here Coalition.

Panelists were asked to discuss what they are seeing happen recently with immigrant arrest and deportation efforts in Central Florida. Ericka Gómez-Tejada spoke about just how pervasive ICE’s presence is in the community and the ripple effect it has for families. Josephine Arroyo talked about the more than 40 habeas corpus petitions her firm has filed recently and how immigration is tied to so many other issues she sees in her criminal practice.

Gómez-Tejada said that there was a marked increase in the number of people coming out of immigration meetings with deportation orders and a large decrease in the number of people being held at the jail. It was a statewide effect since the counties were transporting detainees elsewhere. More arrests are being made, and more people placed in detention.

Arroyo pointed out that more Venezuelans seem to be targeted since the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. More cases are being appealed now, and more unlawful detentions are occurring.

Gillespie said that the Orange County jail had been a regional clearinghouse and since Mayor Jerry Demings limited the number of detainees, fewer are being detained. However, this may be due to ICE bypassing the jail and sending people to another facility. Public vigilance helps make more people aware of these issues.

Each panelist shared stories of families affected by these issues. It’s pervasive throughout every corner of our community.

Gómez-Tejada suggested League members attend the April 21 Board of County Commissioners meeting and to write and call the mayor and commissioners beforehand to ask them to move forward on efforts to clarify language in an agreement between Orange County and the federal government on the Orange County Jail.

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PANEL BIOGRAPHIES

Josephine Arroyo, attorney, The Arroyo Law Firm

Josephine Arroyo is admitted to practice in the Florida and U.S. Middle District Court of Florida. She received her Master of Laws (LL.M. degree) at The George Washington University Law School and holds a Juris Doctorate from Florida A&M University College of Law, where she graduated as Valedictorian of her class.

In 2021, she was honored in Orlando Business Journal’s as one of the 2021 Women Who Mean Business. In 2017, she was appointed to serve on the City of Orlando, Mayor’s Green Works Task Force. She was recognized by U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Kissimmee, as a community leader as a part of Hispanic Heritage month.

She has worked as an associate attorney in trial litigation and has assisted her husband, Phillip Arroyo, on criminal cases since he began his criminal defense career. She has always been a fighter for justice and brings her passion to criminal defense. She cares about being the voice of the most vulnerable and recognizes the injustices within the criminal justice system. She has served as a volunteer attorney for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, helping formerly incarcerated individuals restore their right to vote.

She also is an assistant professor, teaching law and ethics at Rollins College in the Department of Social Entrepreneurship. Arroyo also has received three teaching awards — the Hugh F. McKean Award, an Outstanding Faculty Award and the Walter E. Barden Distinguished Teaching Award.

Ericka Gómez-Tejeda, Hope CommUnity Center

Cka Gómez-Tejeda, Organizing Director for the Hope CommUnity Center

Ericka Gómez-Tejeda is a Colombian immigrant, labor leader and community organizer whose life work has been shaped by her relationships with immigrant families, workers and faith communities committed to dignity, justice and opportunity. She serves as organizing director for the Hope CommUnity Center. She also coordinates the Immigrants Are Welcome Here Coalition (IAWH).

Over her 33-year organizing career, she has reshaped economic policies for college students, won homeownership for South Bronx renters and helped in passing four living-wage laws in New York. During 19 years as a labor leader in the United States, Colombia and Puerto Rico, she helped improve working standards for 35,000 mostly immigrant and Black women workers in the private, healthcare and service sectors.

In 2021, Ericka co-founded Hablamos Español Florida with Hispanic faith, labor and community leaders, ensuring access to COVID vaccines, hurricane response services, mental health resources and voting for more than 7,000 Spanish-speaking residents. She also helped cultivate Spanish-speaking leaders to engage the Hispanic community in the successful campaigns for language access, tenant protections and rent control.

As coordinator of the IAWH Coalition, she stewards a compassionate alliance of 70 organizations that are advancing the rights, protections and well-being of immigrant communities through community care, effective policy advocacy and community defense that stands up to ICE and ensures due process and political accountability.

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel reporter

Ryan Gillespie has been a local government reporter at the Orlando Sentinel for more than 10 years.

He has reported on nearly every community in Central Florida and on a range of topics from local politics and homelessness to immigration.

Gillespie is a University of Central Florida graduate and is from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Professor Kate A. Rodriguez, Barry University

Kate A. Rodriguez joined Barry University School of Law as an assistant professor in the summer of 2009. She created and currently directs a new Immigration Clinic and teaches immigration law.

Prior to coming to Barry, Rodriguez taught for two years as a clinical fellow in the Center for Applied Legal Studies, the clinic that represents asylum seekers at Georgetown University Law Center.

She also has worked in the Immigration Clinic at St. Thomas University School of Law and as an immigration staff attorney with St. Thomas University's Human Rights Institute and Gulfcoast Legal Services. Immediately after law school, she clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Rodriguez is a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars. She graduated magna cum laude with honors from Knox College and cum laude from New York University School of Law.

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