The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
College hosts panel discussion on DACA
Two Lakeland Community College students and an area immigration attorney on Oct. 30 offered their insights and experiences and fielded questions relative to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The exchange took place in Room A-2101 at the school’s main campus in Kirtland and was presented by the Lakeland Hispanic Program in an attempt to clarify some of the finer points of DACA, which was created by an executive order in 2012 under the Obama administration and recently rescinded via executive order under the Trump administration.
As explained on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service website: “On June 15, 2012, the
Secretary of Homeland Security announced that certain people who came to the United States as children and meet several guidelines may request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal. They are also eligible for work authorization. Deferred action is a use of prosecutorial discretion to defer removal action against an individual for a certain period of time. Deferred action does not provide lawful status.”
In an Oct. 26 e-mail exchange, Lakeland Hispanic Program Coordinator Lissette López Piepenburg explained that the goal of the Oct. 30 discussion was to clarify a number of points about DACA and hopefully shed some light on it via some students whose lives it affects directly.
“As a Hispanic Program coordinator, I have students who are DACA eligible, they are concerned about their situation being in limbo and at the mercy of the policymakers,” she writes. “There are a lot of myths about DACA students and also there is lack of knowledge in the general public about DACA.”
She added that the issue extends well beyond the families and students it affects.
“Professors at Lakeland also have students who are DACA students and want to support them,” she states. “There is opportunity for the business of education, which is ultimately our business at Lakeland. Also, we want to bring nonpartisan information to the staff, faculty student body and the community.”
One such student is Patricia Mendez Escamilla, who studies criminal justice at Lakeland. She described the situation that led to her arrival in the United States, which included an abusive father, a mother who had few alternatives to staying with him and a long road
to her current situation as a student.
Before telling her story, she explained her position on President Trump’s decision to rescind the program.
“I understand because it was an executive order, not a decision by the legislature,” she said, adding that being sent back to Mexico would be a hardship. “If I had to go back to Mexico, I would have nowhere to live and my Spanish is not bueno.”
She also asked those in attendance to keep an open mind when DACA and other immigration issues arise.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” she said. “The only way we can understand each other is getting to know each other and not judging them by the way they look.”
Like Escamilla, Lakeland accounting student Juan Guitierrez Perez explained that the United States is his home.
“For me, basically, Mexico is just the place where I was born,” he said, adding that, one day he was there and the next he and his family were in Chicago, from where they eventually moved to Painesville and he attended high school.
He said the differences between his citizenship status and legal U.S. citizens became apparent to
him when asked to participate in some community outreach activities, which his lack of a Social Security card prevented him from joining in.
He said after graduation, he looked at his options, found Lakeland to be an affordable option for pursuing his dream of starting his own business one day and DACA has enabled him to do so there.
But it’s not an easy road, he said, describing having to work two jobs, and not being eligible for student financial aid or government benefits, despite having the related deductions taken from each of his paychecks.
During the questionand-answer portion of the discussion, both Escamilla, Perez and Kim Alabasi, an immigration attorney with Dworken & Bernstein, fielded questions about DACA, how students may maintain it beyond its expiration and what they face without it.
Piepenburg said she hoped those in attendance took away clarification about some of the myths surrounding DACA and an appreciation of some of the situations some of its recipients face.
According to the college, there are 23 Lakeland students who are DACA recipients.