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Gary Airport Serves As Hub To Deport Immigrant Detainees

Gary/Chicago International Airport

The Gary-Chicago International Airport is a public airport located three miles northwest of Gary, Indiana, United States.

Ken Lund

For years, Ruth Needleman has tracked the buses that arrive weekly at the Gary-Chicago International Airport. Shackled immigrant detainees shuffle off and are later flown, usually to the Mexican border, and released. 

A group of community leaders from the Gary-Chicago region have called for an interfaith vigil at the airport on Friday, April 7th, 2017 to protest the ongoing deportations. 

Needleman, a professor emerita of Labor Studies at Indiana University and a long-time Gary resident, joins us to chronicle the actions at Gary Airport. She's also joined by JoAnn Persch, a Sister of Mercy nun and co-founder of The Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants. Persch works with adults detained at immigrant detention centers awaiting court dates. She also works in children's houses for unaccompanied immigrant minors.

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