White supremacists and anti-immigrant leaders are trying to use immigrant youth and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as a political bargaining chip to win their reprehensible border wall and nativist agenda, but it’s important to remember that real lives are involved here. Because of DACA, 800,000 moms, dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, entrepreneurs, and students are able to stay in the only country they’ve ever known as home. If the Trump administration ends or phases out DACA, 800,000 lives will be upended. Rewire’s Tina Vasquez talked to ten undocumented immigrant youth about how DACA has changed their lives, and their worries as they wait to hear the future of the program. Andrea Soto, a 21-year-old college student from Austin, Texas:
“I’m a chemistry senior at UT Austin and part of the University Leadership Initiative where I have been part of the team that implemented DACA educational forums and DACA clinics to help families fill out and prepare the application. I received DACA in 2012, and having a work permit enabled me to drive with a license and no longer fear a police officer pulling me over and questioning my status. DACA also allowed me to obtain a social security number [and] to be employed by UT Austin. A part-time job gave me the economic freedom to no longer be a burden on my parents. DACA has allowed me to safely travel within the United States without fear of being stopped at security gates. DACA has allowed me to independently finance and continue my undergraduate career. Terminating DACA will put many professional, college-educated individuals on an uncertain path where they can no longer give back to their own country—by working and paying taxes in this economy.”
Another DACA recipient, 27-year-old Manuel Vasquez from Raleigh, North Carolina, told Rewire that it’s also the every day things afforded by DACA, things that too many of us take for granted, that also impacts their lives. “When I was younger, before DACA, I was very careful about not staying out too late, not driving past certain times, or driving on weekends because of police,” Vasquez said. “Now I have a license. My family is undocumented, so I’m the one who does the driving, the long-distance driving when we visit family. It’s a small piece of paper, but it allows me to get through airport security without problems. It allows me to drive my family without fear. For me, it’s this small stuff that people don’t necessarily think about, everyday life stuff, that DACA has helped.”
Read the rest of the profiles from Rewire’s Tina Vasquez here, and spare a few minutes today to make a call to your member of Congress to help defend DACA and immigrant youth.
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