Who are the ‘Dreamers’ whose dreams have been deferred?
BY ANH DO, CINDY CARCAMO AND ANDREA CASTILLO >> Long ago, it seems, Congress gave up on the idea of adopting comprehensive immigration reform. The debate over what to do about millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally was just too hard. President Trump said he wanted to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. So far, that’s gone nowhere, too. The recent debate has focused instead on a group of young immigrants who entered the country illegally through no fault of their own — kids who were brought in by their parents or others. Most grew up speaking English, attending U.S. schools. Are they supposed to be deported? To where? President Obama put a foot in the door of immigration reform with an executive action in 2012 known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Under DACA, an estimated 800,000 young people were given renewable two-year shields from deportation, and eligibility for work permits. The Trump administration last week signaled that the program will come to an end in six months, unless Congress takes steps to renew or revamp it. Who are the “Dreamers,” as these young people came to be known? They are more diverse than you might think. According to the Brookings Institution, immigrants from 195 countries had applied for DACA status as of 2015. Most were from Mexico. After that, the top five countries of origin were El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and South Korea.
Melody Klingenfuss
Melody Klingenfuss knew that it was only a matter of time before Trump would scrap DACA — that the program was “under threat like never before.”
In recent months, this sense of dread fueled her desire to reach out and teach young beneficiaries of the program to fight back against Trump’s crackdown on people in the country illegally. Many of the DACA beneficiaries she trained over the summer had never felt the need to organize until now, she said. At first many were shy, but now they are ready to be vocal.
Klingenfuss, 23, of North Hills, came legally to the U.S. from Guatemala at age 9 to reunite with her mother. She fell out of legal status when she overstayed her tourist visa, she said, but was accepted into the DACA program after submitting to the strict screening process. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s in nonprofit leadership and management from USC and is now an immigrant youth organizer with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights Los Angeles.
She said she’s trying not to focus too much on how the end of DACA will affect her own life. Instead, she’s putting all her energy into galvanizing others to take a stand. “There is a lot of anger,” she said. “There is a lot of motivation to really rise up.”
Jeong Park
When he was 11, Jeong Park’s parents — a cab driver and a cosmetics saleswoman — sent their only child from Seoul to Southern California on a tourist visa, having saved money to enroll him in a private prep school in Van Nuys.
Park says his mother told him that, as a boy, he really needed to make the trip to explore America. But what he remembers is that he cried a lot on the plane.
He grew up, cared for by an uncle, with whom he still lives in Koreatown in Los Angeles. He graduated from Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona, later earning a political science degree from UCLA. He had no idea of his immigration status, due to his expired tourist visa, until he tried to get a driver’s license as a teen.
Now 23 and a DACA recipient, Park said the public may not be aware of the great diversity among DACA recipients.
“I know that most undocumented faces you see are Latino faces. But I hear that there are thousands and thousands of people from other cultures. Not everyone needs to be silent,” he added.
His DACA papers expire in August 2018. Park could choose to be upset, or depressed, but he doesn’t. “I’m hopeful,” he said. He’s been getting inspiring messages from friends on social media. And one fact propels him: “The truth of the matter is 12 million immigrants have survived — DACA or no DACA. You’re not going to be able to get rid of all of them,” he said.
Park doesn’t think about returning to South Korea. He understands his parents sacrificed so he might find success in a professional career in the U.S. Last summer, he finally saw his father for the first time since leaving his homeland. His dad came to his college graduation.
Gregory ‘Ronnie’ James
A “lifeline” — that’s how Gregory “Ronnie” James of Brooklyn, N.Y., viewed DACA. “Now that lifeline has been taken away,” he said.
James was 9 when his mother — who was living in the U.S. illegally, working as a babysitter — sent for him and his older brother from their Caribbean island home of St. Lucia. After he and his brother received DACA, his brother found work as a security guard, then as a nursing assistant. James enrolled at Borough of Manhattan Community College in a two-year associate’s program in communications, then transferred to the City College of New York, where he is majoring in international studies.
“I have a scholarship that’s tied to receiving in-state tuition. If I lose DACA, I can no longer afford school, basically,” James said.
James, 20, was recently hired to intern for a member of New York’s City Council. He starts this month, since his work permit doesn’t expire until 2019. James said that after Trump was elected, he figured DACA was doomed, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
“DACA was never a permanent solution to fixing the immigrant situation of Dreamers or our parents,” he said, adding, “I don’t think it’s a Latino issue; it’s an issue for immigrants.… A more permanent solution is needed.”
He said the U.S. is at a crossroads and must decide how it treats not only Dreamers, but all immigrants, Muslims and people of color. “Are we the country that makes dreams come true or that takes it away from anyone who is ‘the other’?” he said.
Pedro Ramirez
Pedro Ramirez’s first political act was a walkout in high school after Congress voted against a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007.
In the decade since, he said he has learned to remain skeptical about efforts to mend the nation’s broken immigration system — efforts that affect him directly. He was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and his parents brought him illegally to the United States at age 3. Now a DACA recipient, Ramirez, 28, has been able to work legally since 2013, most recently as a labor union organizer in Fresno.
Earlier, Ramirez worked odd jobs and used scholarships to finish his bachelor’s degree in political science at Fresno State and his master’s in public policy and administration from Cal State Long Beach. After receiving his work permit, he got his first steady job with L.A. City Councilman Gil Cedillo’s office.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Ramirez began preparing for a worst-case scenario. He put more money into his savings. He and his parents made copies of their important legal documents and forms of identification, wrote down emergency contacts and made copies of their house keys to give to people they can trust in case any of them is detained.
It’s not as if he’s in hiding. In 2010, shortly after being elected student body president of Fresno State, Ramirez’s immigration status was exposed in an anonymous email sent to local news outlets. “In a way, I’m relieved,” he told The Times then. “I never really thought this was going to happen. But now that it’s out there, I finally feel ready to say, ‘Yes, it’s me. I’m one of the thousands.’ ”
Sumbul Siddiqui
Sumbul Siddiqui dreams of becoming a doctor, and her enrollment in DACA seemed a step toward meeting that goal. Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents and now living in Atlanta, she works as a medical scribe, handling records and taking notes for doctors examining patients. She’s also a volunteer at a low-income community clinic.
“What led me to medicine is the lack of access we have to knowing what’s going on and what we can do to take better care of our health. We’re part of the underserved simply because we’re undocumented,” said Siddiqui, who earned a bachelor’s in neuroscience from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga.
Siddiqui has lived in Georgia for 20 years, arriving as a 4-year-old on a journey that unfolded when her father, a former travel company manager, applied for a tourist visa that later changed to a business visa when he decided to open a gas station in the state. Now the Siddiqui siblings have mixed immigration status, with her and a younger brother classified under DACA, while two other siblings hold U.S. citizenship.
Trump’s rejection of DACA, she says, “doesn’t make me so angry. More than anything, I feel hurt — and that hurt pushes me to try harder. A lot of people assume that the undocumented are this way or that way, but the reality is we’re all different .... We have nothing to hide because when we apply to DACA, we go through background checks and we open up our lives.”
Her message to Americans is to “please, don’t make assumptions” about those without legal papers. “Really get to know us.”