Media Advisory: ACORN Honduras Members and Groups in Honduras Demonstrate for More Neighborhood Security, Jobs, and Services at US Embassy and Office of First Lady

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - July 22, 2014) - Reacting to the crises of insecurity in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa on the eve of the President of Honduras visit to the United States to meet with President Obama and other Central American presidents, ACORN members demanded that the government take immediate steps to provide effective and forceful security in lower income neighborhoods. ACORN groups led by several mothers who are ACORN members whose teenage sons were forced to flee the violence and other conditions in the barrios and are now being held in detention in Texas by immigration authorities were clear that their decisions to send their children to the United States was based on having seen no alternatives but to run from their communities, rather than towards something. They demanded that the government reduce the militarization in their communities provoked by this crises and actually provide security for residents from narco-traffickers and the threats of gangs.

ACORN member Luisa Almazan of San Pedro Sula spoke at the demonstration at the First Lady's office on Thursday morning of her 14-year old son, Ermelindo Perez Almazan, having been forced to flee to the United Stated despite the risks when gang recruiters gave him a choice of joining the gang or being killed. ACORN members and mothers, Candida Hernandez of Villa Nueva Cortes in San Pedro Sula, and Maria Antonia Callejas of Barrio Cabanas, told of the dangers to their sons, 18 and 16 respectively, and the fact that to save their lives they had been forced to pay between $3000 and $5000 USD to help them flee to the United States from the violence and poverty. Now with no resources and deeply in debt in order to secure their children's release they are being asked to raise more money to transmit documents and get representation.

ACORN members are demonstrating in Tegucigalpa at the US Embassy demanding that some of the funds being given to the Honduran military that have polarized the drug wars in their neighborhoods instead be devoted to providing protection in the communities themselves as well as creating opportunities to allow children and families to stay together in Honduras. Furthermore they demanded that border relief include resettlement relief and support for children and families being reunited.

ACORN members are demonstrating and staging a vigil in San Pedro Sula at the office of the Honduran First Lady on Thursday to demand that the President of Honduras get the message that lower income communities need protection and not platitudes if we are to keep our children safe from gangs, that rather than cut back on teachers and schools, we need educational and job support, and rather than all of the attention being given to the upper class and business interests, the barrios have to have resources.

ACORN Honduras pledged that they would keep standing up until there is change.

Who: ACORN Honduras was founded four years ago as an affiliate and with the support of ACORN International (www.acorninternational.org), a global federation of 100,000 low and moderate income family members working in 17 countries including Canada, Italy, India, Kenya, Scotland, England, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and the United States to build community and labor organizations to build power and win change for lower income workers and communities. ACORN is part of the community organizing tradition and continuous work since its founding in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1970.