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Wednesday, September 13, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Immigrants accuse Trump administration of betraying them
By Andrew Selsky and Josh Hoffner
Associated Press
They grew up in America
and are working or going to
school here. Some are build-
ing businesses or raising fami-
lies of their own. Many have
no memory of the country
where they were born.
Now, almost 800,000
young immigrants who were
brought to the U.S. illegally
as children or overstayed
their visas could see their
lives upended after the Trump
administration announced
Tuesday it is ending the
Obama-era program that pro-
tected them from deportation.
“We are Americans in
heart, mind and soul. We just
don’t have the correct docu-
mentation that states we’re
American,” said Jose Rivas,
27, who is studying for a mas-
ter’s in counseling at the Uni-
versity of Wyoming.
Rivas’ grandmother
brought him to this country
from Mexico when he was 6.
He wants to become a school
counselor in America but
lamented: “Everything is up
in the air at this point.”
The news that the gov-
ernment is phasing out the
Deferred Action for Child-
hood Arrivals program,
known as DACA, was met
with shock, anger and a sense
of betrayal by its beneficiaries,
often called “Dreamers.”
Demonstrations broke
out in New York City,
where police handcuffed
and removed over a dozen
immigration activists who
briefly blocked Trump Tower,
and in other cities, including
Salt Lake City, Denver, Los
Angeles and Portland.
Attorney General Jeff Ses-
sions said DACA, started by
President Barack Obama in
2012, was an unconstitutional
exercise of executive power.
The Trump administration and
other DACA opponents argue
that it is up to Congress to
decide how to deal with such
immigrants.
At a Los Angeles rally,
handyman John Willis car-
ried a sign saying “American
lives matter” and criticized the
DACA program as an “unlaw-
ful tyrannical executive order
that our previous president
thrust upon us.
“I don’t wish these kids
to be sent back to Mexico or
anything like that, but I don’t
believe we should have two
sets of laws,” he said. “We
have one set of laws, we
should follow them. Congress
needs to get up off the pot and
enact some legislation to take
care of this mess.”
Attorneys general for sev-
eral states threatened to sue to
protect the DACA beneficia-
ries. “We stand ready to take
all appropriate legal action to
protect Oregon’s Dreamers,”
Oregon Attorney General
Ellen Rosenblum tweeted.
Ricardo Ortiz, who was
brought to the U.S. from
Monterrey, Mexico, at age
3, has been volunteering at
the downtown Houston con-
vention center that sheltered
thousands of Hurricane Har-
vey victims.
Ortiz, a 21-year-old student
at the University of Houston,
said he doesn’t know what
he will do if DACA is ended
or he is forced to leave the
country.
“It’s crazy that people
really think that we don’t
belong here when we’ve been
here all of our lives,” he said.
Amid fears of a greater
immigration crackdown,
Oscar Belanger, vice princi-
pal at Nellie Muir Elementary
School in the predominantly
Latino town of Woodburn,
Oregon, greeted students in
English and Spanish on their
first day of class.
He told a reporter the
school would refuse to turn
over students’ information
to immigration agents, not-
ing that Oregon law prohibits
that. He said administrators
and teachers want Washington
to stand by the DACA ben-
eficiaries. Only those who are
at least 15 can apply for the
program.
Utah Attorney General
Sean Reyes, a Republican and
an early Trump supporter, said
the president has every right to
end DACA. But he added that
it would be unconscionable
to deport those who benefited
from the program.
“These children grew up
believing they are American
and so many of them have
lived lives of which America
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can be proud,” Reyes said.
Arkansas Attorney General
Leslie Rutledge commended
Trump’s decision.
“While we are a compas-
sionate country, the United
States is a country of laws and
President Trump recognized
that President Obama’s DACA
program went far beyond
the executive branch’s legal
authority,” Rutledge said.
In Miami, Paola Marti-
nez, 23, who is from Bogota,
Colombia, sobbed as she
attended a rally of about 100
immigrants, and said she will
feel helpless without DACA.
She recently graduated with
a civil engineering degree
from Florida International
University.
“Instead of going a step
forward, we are going a step
backwards. We are hiding in
the shadows again after my
work (permit) expires. It’s just
sadness,” she said. “You just
feel like you are empty. There
is no support anymore.”
Martinez said she is not
able to renew her permit
because it expires in 2019, so
she is hoping her employer or
another company sponsors her
so she can stay and help sup-
port her parents, who depend
on her for rides and household
expenses. In Florida, immi-
grants who are illegally in the
country cannot get driver’s
licenses.
Karen Marin, a 26-year-
old from New York whose
parents brought her to the U.S.
from Mexico before she was a
year old, was in physics class
at Bronx Community Col-
lege when Sessions made the
announcement.
“I honestly I can’t even
process it right now. I’m still
trying to get myself together,”
Marin said. “I just hope that
they do change their mind
and they realize what they’re
doing is wrong.”
Carla Chavarria, 24, is a
Phoenix entrepreneur who
owns a digital marketing firm
and a fitness apparel line. She
came to the U.S. from Mexico
when she was 7.
Her permit expires in
November and she is wait-
ing for her renewal to be pro-
cessed. She is set to close on
the purchase of a home later
this month.
“It’s hard being a busi-
ness owner as it is, especially
with being young and being a
woman and someone who’s an
immigrant. It’s already hard as
it is. Now having DACA being
taken away,” she said.
“I’m sort of like in limbo
right now.”
Selsky reported from Wood-
burn, and Hoffner reported
from Phoenix. AP report-
ers Adriana Gomez Licon in
Miami; Nomaan Merchant in
Houston; Michelle Price in
Salt Lake City; Amanda Myers
in Los Angeles and Astrid Gal-
van in Phoenix contributed to
this report.
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