Why would an undocumented immigrant voluntarily walk into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement center and declare his or her status to the officers there? Surely they'd be locked up and would run the very real risk of being deported. But that's just what Marco Saavedra and Viridiana Martinez, activists in the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, did in July, 2012, ultimately ending up in Florida's Broward Transitional Center. 

You may remember Saavedra from Aura Bogado's article earlier this year, Dreamers Fight Deportations. Now, a joint profile by This American Life and The American Prospect looks at Saavedra, Martinez and several other activists who put their bodies on the line to stop the unjust deportation machine. 

—Francis Reynolds