Local Dreamers urge Congress to protect them,
Central Florida residents urging Congress to shield them
Central Florida Dreamers broke into tears Tuesday on the steps of Orlando City Hall as they appealed to Congress to protect them from deportation in the wake of President Donald Trump ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
They were joined by almost 100 people holding signs and chanting “Fight Back,” just hours after Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Department of Justice was rescinding the DACA program that gave more than 800,000 young immigrants a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the country. An estimated 5,000 of those live in Orange County alone, according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Their goal, they said, was to let Central Florida know how much the Dreamers, who were children when brought into the country illegally, have contributed to the only country they’ve ever known.
“This is not going to end today,” said DACA recipient Alejandra Salinas. “[Trump], you are messing with my home. My life. This is not a game. This is our lives, all 800,000 of us out there.”
Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez, lead organizer for the coalition, criticized the Trump administration for its “rhetoric that’s been hateful and divisive,” including Sessions saying Tuesday DACA “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.”
Speakers talked about how they have paid taxes and given back to their community, including Ahtziry Barrera, a DACA recipient attending Rollins College after graduating at the top of her class at Colonial High School in Orlando. She said DACA has allowed her to start her own business.
“I for one have been here since I was 4 years old,” said Barrera, 19, who crossed the border with her family from Mexico. “The only country I remember pledging allegiance to is the United States.”
She said she has dealt with being stereotyped when she talks about her DACA status.
“I’ve been called a criminal, a million things,” she said. “I’ve
had eggs thrown at me. But that’s not going to stop us. … Many places are so bad [that] just saying I’m a DACA [recipient] could get me beat up. But all DACA recipients should speak up. We need to be proud of the lives we live here and what we’ve created here.”
Eli Garcia, 28, a University of Central Florida student, said the past week “was filled with anxiety for me, not knowing what was going to happen. Not knowing what was going to happen to my family.”
At one point, the crowd chanted for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio to pass the Dream Act, an immigration reform bill the Republican senator opposed in 2010. Rubio later proposed and withdrew an alternative version to the act.
“I have long supported accommodating those brought to this country illegally through no fault of their own,” Rubio said in a statement. “However, I have always felt that President Obama’s executive action was unconstitutional and that the right way to address this issue was through legislation. Congress now has less than six months to deal with this the right way, through the legislative process.”
But, he added, “It is important that the White House clearly outline what kind of legislation the president is willing to sign.’’
Trump said he’d delay his new policy by six months, with no new applications accepted and all permits expiring by March 5 able to be renewed until Oct. 5. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a briefing the president expects some kind of immigration deal in the next six weeks.
Dreamer Yarenis Fernandez, a UCF and Florida College of Health Sciences graduate from Orlando, held hope that some kind of deal would be made.
“I think President Trump cares about us and sees our hard work and commitment,’’ she said. “And this is his method to get something done. Big things are going to come.”