Borderland Dreamers worried about President Trump’s DACA decision
Eight-hundred thousand undocumented immigrants are awaiting the news of possible policy change.
President Donald Trump’s decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, should be official by Tuesday. Protests were held Monday across the nation. President Trump is expected to announce an end to the DACA program.
Dismantling it will appease Trump’s base, which has called for a hard line on immigration. Two sources familiar with Trump’s plan say he hopes to give Congress six months to legislate a formal replacement for DACA. If repealed, that means many undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children could lose protection from deportation.
The decision has left so-called Dreamers in the Borderland worried and wondering about what’s next? ABC-7 spoke with a couple of Dreamers Monday about the difficult situation.
“It seems unreal,” said 19 year-old Paola Rodriguez, who graduated from Burges High School in June and got her Cosmetology license.
Three months later, the dreamer, who came to El Paso from Juarez as a five year-old in 2003, faces the possibility of having to return to a country she’s never known due to President Trump’s decision to end DACA.
“I consider myself an American because I’ve been here all my life, this is all I’ve known,” Rodriguez said. “By this program being cut off it’s just like, ‘What am I going to do now? Am I going to be able to do the things I wanted to or am I just going to have to be stuck in the house not being able to go out because of being scared of being deported or something?”
Rodriguez admitted, she’s scared.
“When we signed up for DACA we gave them all of our information, like where we live, our bank account, pretty much everything,” Rodriguez said. “So with that information they could easily track somebody down. (President Trump) did say he wants to build jobs, so why not let us stay here, because we want to work.”
Twenty-four year-old Roberto Valadez-Pena is a Dreamer on track to graduate from UTEP in December with a degree in Sociology. He’s lived in El Paso since he was a year old, when his parents brought him from Juarez.
“I like to joke around and say, ‘In El Paso, everyone knows an undocumented person, you just don’t know it,'” Valadez-Pena said with a laugh. “I’m worried, just got to keep fighting.”
Valadez-Pena is hoping Congress acts to block President Trump’s decision to end DACA.
“I hope that we do have enough votes to get something through there,” Valadez-Pena said. “I think that if we mobilize well and organize and put pressure on our elected officials we can get something through Congress.”
Congressman Beto O’rourke reminded ABC-7 that Sen. Lindsay Graham introduced the Dream Act back in July, hoping to fend off legal challenges by putting DACA recipients on a path to citizenship. O’rourke thinks this may force Congress to legislate instead of depending on a presidential executive order.
ABC-7 also reached out to Congressmen Will Hurd and Steve Pearce, but did not hear back from them by deadline.
The group “Education not Deportation” has scheduled a DACA rally for noon Tuesday on the UTEP campus. The plan is to march to Rep. O’Rourke’s office in Downtown El Paso.
