– Written By @DanielleBTV
Not all heroes wear capes, some wear jerseys. NFL players Josh Norman and Demario Davis helped bail out an undocumented immigration activist Monday, who had been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement center since May.
22-year-old Jose Bello, a California farmworker who came to the U.S. when he was only 3, recited a poem at a Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting back in May, criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants. Two days after reading the poem, he was placed into ICE custody on an outstanding DUI charge, according to Fox News.
Stephanie Padilla, an ACLU staff attorney representing Bello, said ICE targeted Bello in a spirit of retaliation because his speech challenged ICE’s immigration policies.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Bello’s $50,000 bond was paid for by Demario Davis, a linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, Josh Norman, a cornerback for the Washington Redskins, the New York Immigrant Freedom Fund, and the National Bail Fund Network, according to his lawyers.
“To me, it seemed like a dream,” Bello said in an interview. “It’s like something that you hear about in movies. I watch football, and I know how much attention and how famous those people are, so just the fact that they would look into helping me out, it was a great honor.”
Davis and Norman are reportedly both involved with the Players Coalition, a group of professional athletes working to improve social justice and racial equality.
#DearAmerica, We’ve witnessed a lot these past few years. Yesterday was another example of that, where I saw the price tag on freedom. When I helped to post a $50,000 bond for a young man detained 87 days for exercising his 1st Amendment right of free speech… pic.twitter.com/uffYiES86S
— *Joshua R. Norman (@J_No24) August 14, 2019
