Worried, ‘Dreamers’ say they won’t give up

LOS ANGELES — Safir Wazed, a graduate student born in Bangladesh and raised in California, struggled to focus on his studies. Evelin Salgado, born in Mexico and raised in Tennessee, was ending plans to buy a house and wondering what would happen to her teaching job.

And Basilisa Alonso did what thousands of other socalled Dreamers did Tuesday: She marched in the streets to make her plight known.

“I’m willing to take the risk for my family and for all the other DACA people out there,” Alonso said, referring to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era program that she was marching to save.

Minutes later, a New York City police officer moved in and placed her hand behind her back with plastic restraints. She was among several dozen people arrested after they blocked an intersection near Trump Tower at various times Tuesday.

About 800,000 undocumented young adults like them had endured weeks of nail-biting tension over the fate of DACA, which for the past five years has enabled them to legally live and work in the United States.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed days of speculation that the Trump administration would end DACA in six months, leaving Congress to come up with a legislative solution to replace it.

The announcement, fulfilling a campaign pledge by US President Donald Trump, immediately threw into question the future of everyone who signed up under the program.

“I have been blessed with all the opportunities that DACA brought to my life,” said Salgado, 23, who is now a teacher.

Since receiving DACA status, Wazed, 27, has held a job and bought a car and a condominium. He is now a graduate student at the University of Southern California. “Am I supposed to plan to reset my life in six months?” he asked.