Young immigrants’ dreams in peril

Deportation could force some to hide

Some 74,300 Florida residents could lose their jobs, scrap the futures they envisioned and retreat to the shadows, their advocates say.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ended the Obama-era program that protected them from deportation, enabled them to legally work and obtain driver’s licenses. Trump called on Congress to replace the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. They have six months to do so before the permits of the so-called Dreamers begin to expire.

The Dreamers arrived in the country as children without permanent legal status. They include Nicolas Perez-Plaz, a father of three who runs a vitamin company in Miramar, and 17-year-old Manuel, who wants a career outside farm fields. The Sun Sentinel agreed not to fully identify him.

There’s also Jupiter resident Julia Montejo, 22, who earned a degree from Cornell University with dreams to work in higher education.

“Right now, I’m literally drafting a letter to urge every legislator from South Florida,” she said. “I’m going to print my resume and attach it to the email.”

Opponents say DACA was an abuse of power by Obama, who acted without Congress. While Trump said he did not favor punishing children for the actions of their parents, he wrote, “We must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Tuesday urged Republicans to support a bipartisan bill that would grant pathways to citizenship for immigrants who came here illegally, including Dreamers.

“Ending DACA is a purely political move that will impact 800,000 dreamers and millions more by upending the lives of their families,” she said during a news conference at the Broward Teachers Union headquarters in Tamarac. “It will have detrimental impacts on our economy and do nothing to secure our borders or fix our tattered immigration system movement.”

She cited several studies that have found DACA to be an economic boon because recipients are able to increase their wages and contribute to the overall economy.

The federal government would spend more than $60 billion to deport DACA recipients and lose $280 billion in economic growth over the next decade, according to the CATO Institute.

The Center for American Progress estimated a $460.3 billion loss in national gross domestic product over the next decade, and 685,000 fewer workers, if DACA recipients had to leave.

But many of them would go into hiding instead of leaving, said local attorney Victoria Mesa-Estrada.

Montejo, the recent graduate, is doing the opposite. She’s been so vocal that she’s had people tell Immigration and Customs Enforcement that their agents should go after her.

She’s never been one to back down. She had to learn English after moving from Guatemala, yet still graduated school among the top 20 students of about 750 in her class, she said.

“I found out what the Ivy League was when I was in third or fourth grade and was like, ‘That’s where I want to go,’ ” she said.

The reality of her dreams, though, fluctuated every time Congress considered an immigration reform bill. DACA changed that. It allowed her to travel without fear of being whisked away from an airport to a detention center. And it allowed her to work legally. Now that’s in doubt. “If you get a job offer, you can only work up until the point your status legally expires,” she said. “After that you’re not legally allowed to work.”

Manuel, of Pahokee, wonders whether he should give up.

After DACA was initiated, he enrolled in the International Baccalaureate honors program at his school. He wanted to be a teacher or a psychologist. Now he debates whether to give up on the idea of community college or even bother finishing high school.

Everything he knows is here. One of his first memories was riding on his smuggler’s shoulders through a tunnel into America at age 4.

“This whole year has been stressful for me . ... When is the day Trump’s going to come and pat me on the shoulder and say, ‘It’s over buddy?’ ” he said. “Why am I even trying when everything is against me to do it?”

Nicolas Perez-Plaz, on the other hand, said he’s certain he’s not going anywhere. His parents brought him to Florida from Venezuela when he was 12. His mom and sister later were deported but he stayed because he was a minor.

DACA allowed him to contribute to his community.

“I thought, at least I’m going to be somebody,” he said.

He worked three jobs and studied business at Broward Community College. He said he doesn’t think he could make it in Venezuela, where the political situation has gotten so dangerous that his mother fled to Colombia.

“We’re just regular people trying to make our dream come true … we try to live by the books,” PerezPlaz said. “If I get deported, they’re putting a bullet through my head.”