‘Dreamer’ died trying to help hurting Texans
As Hurricane Harvey’s wrath descended on Texas, Alonso Guillen’s father begged him not to make the 120-mile trek to the Houston area to rescue those stranded in floodwaters.
“It is too dangerous,” his father pleaded, Guillen’s brother recalled.
But when it came to helping others, Guillen, a 31-year-old Mexican immigrant, was headstrong, relatives said. On Aug. 29, Guillén left his job as a radio host early to pile into a white Chevy Tahoe with a group a friends. The volunteers from Lufkin made the drive to Cyprus Creek in Spring, a suburb of Houston. Once there, they set out on five boats, using a walkie-talkie app to identify people who needed rescuing.
Late that night, as Guillen and his group were on their way to pluck survivors from an apartment complex, their rescue boat slammed into an Interstate 45 bridge. The collision hurled Guillen and his friend, Tomas Carreon, 25, also of Lufkin, into the rushing floodwaters. A third person in the boat was later rescued, grasping onto a tree, the Houston Chronicle reported.
On Friday, searchers found Carreon’s body. And on Sunday, Guillen’s body floated to the surface, his brother, Jesus Guillen said.
“He died wanting to serve,” Jesus Guillen, a 36-year-old truck driver from Lufkin, said. “He could have stayed home watching the news on television, but he chose to go help.”
Guillen and Carreon were among at least 60 people who had died as of Monday afternoon in connection to the storm, a number expected to increase. And their stories struck a chord with immigrant communities in Texas and beyond. Relatives said Guillen was a “Dreamer,” a recipient of Obama-era protections that President Donald Trump is ending. He came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 15 years old.
A group of 10 states, led by Guillen’s home state of Texas, had vowed to sue the administration had Trump not ended the program. Opponents of DACA argue that the program takes jobs away from citizens and legal U.S. residents, and that its creation marked an unconstitutional use of then-President Barack Obama’s powers.
As news of Guillen’s death spread over the Labor Day weekend, his name became a rallying cry among immigrant advocates.
“They’re good people, they’re hard workers,” Guillen’s aunt, Sandra Guillen, said of DACA recipients. “They’re not coming to take anyone’s jobs away.”