Nine young people are changing the way the country talks about immigration—not from the floor of Congress or a campaign podium, but from a detention center.

On July 22, the undocumented youth deliberately crossed the southern border into the United States, as a protest against immigration policy as well as a symbolic act of resistance to the deportation system that has loomed over them and their families since they first entered the country.

Their carefully orchestrated protest placed the nine—Claudia Amaro, Adriana Gil Diaz, Luis Leon, Maria Peniche, Ceferino Santiago, Mario Felix, Lulu Martinez, Marco Saavedra and Lizbeth Mateo—directly on the frontline of the immigration reform debate. Hailing from different states and ranging in age from 19 to 37, they have languished in in Arizona’s Eloy Detention Center for two weeks*. Six of the nine were in Mexico prior to the action, having either been deported or left the U.S. to avoid enforcement authorities. But Mateo, Martinez and Saavedra are longtime activists based in the U.S. and “self-deported” specifically to take part in the protest.

As their story has streaked across the news headlines, they have inspired a wave of social media activism and calls for solidarity, as well as controversy in elite political circles.

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