Watch As Paul Ryan's 2 Challengers Get Arrested At DACA Protest

RACINE, WI — They walked out of school, left their office and homes, and came shouting "this is what democracy looks like" and "si se puede," and they wanted to pressure Speaker Paul Ryan to support DACA on the program's deadline day. Their demonstration ended with no Paul Ryan, and 25 arrests.

Among the 125 students, parents and supporters from across the Racine area, and the 25 people taken into custody were two of his Democratic challengers in this November's election.

Monday, March 5 was the deadline for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act, commonly referred to as DACA. That deadline has come and gone after court rulings have temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from ending the program that offers protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

According to the Racine Journal Times, congressional candidates Randy Bryce of Caledonia and Cathy Myers of Janesville were arrested by Racine police for blocking the intersection of Main and Sixth Streets of Downtown. Reports indicated that those taken into custody were released after they were issued civil citations.

Patch.com reached out to the Bryce campign office, which told us that "Randy was arrested with about 20 [sic] other demonstrators in an act of civil disobedience in support a clean Dream Act. Today is the deadline that Trump imposed for Congress to act. As area students demonstrated on the sidewalks, they sat peacefully in the intersection of 6th and Main, near Paul Ryan's racine office. After 10 minutes, the police arrested them and placed them in police vans."

Bryce, whose grandparents are Mexican immigrants, says he's been a consistent supporter of immigrant rights and protections, and has been working with Voces de la Frontera for the last couple years to support the immigration movement. Bryce aims to move the immigration and labor movements more closely together.

"Members of Wisconsin’s immigrant community have been asking to speak with Paul Ryan so they can personally urge him to support the Dream Act, to make DACA permanent, and to block federal budget spending to fund mass deportations," he wrote in an essay late last year.

Bryce said he tried helping two Dreamers contact their congressman, Paul Ryan to support Daca. Bryce said that Ryan had yet to meet with them "even after they went on a five-day hunger strike, and he refused to meet them at his Janesville church, even though the priest gave [them] permission to be there."

Submitted Photos, Published With Permission