Undocumented immigrant activists Marco Saavedra and Viridiana Martinez were picked up by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to Florida’s Broward Transitional Center last summer. But their cases were special: They had both voluntarily gotten themselves locked up, in order to more effectively organize other detainees against the spike in deportations in the past few years. Marco’s goal was “to make it such a PR nightmare for ICE to have someone in the facility that it’s more convenient, or more amenable to them, to have you on the outside.” Watch the full video to hear Saavedra describe his struggle on behalf of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA).

—James Cersonsky

Read more about the NIYA’s work in the February 18, 2013, edition of the Nation.