Mothers rally for protections
Hard-line immigration policies force families to face possibility of splitting, activists say.
A group of immigrant moms with temporary legal protections gathers in L.A. park to push back against hard-line policies.
During the week leading up to Mother’s Day in previous years, Karla Estrada would wake up early to give her mom f lowers and a teddy bear before she went to work, and would cook her dinner when she got home. On the weekend, Estrada and her family would treat her mom to a nice meal.
This Sunday will be Estrada’s first Mother’s Day away from her mom, Gloria, who, along with her father, Angel, voluntarily returned to Mexico last June after her brother was deported. They had been in the U.S. illegally for more than two decades.
Organized by the activist network Movimiento Cosecha, Estrada and a small group of mothers with temporary legal protections gathered at MacArthur Park on the eve of Mother’s Day to demand permanent protections and push back against the Trump administration’s hard-line view of illegal immigration.
Estrada, 27, who was brought to the U.S. illegally at age 5 but has temporary protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said parents need to break away from the narrative that it’s good enough for their children to attain legal status even if they don’t.
“Being in this country is absolutely nothing if you don’t have your family with you,” she said.
President Trump’s inauguration last year brought fresh anxiety to many of the millions of immigrants living in the country illegally. As his administration cracks down on illegal immigration, parents grapple with the possibility of being separated from their children if they are detained or deported.
“We are here because we are tired of witnessing our community continuously being attacked by this administration,” said community organizer Claudia Treminio. “We are here because we are tired of being criminalized for just being.”
Using 2009 to 2013 census data, the Migration Policy Institute found that 5.1 million children — the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens — lived with at least one parent without legal status. A USC analysis using data from 2009 to 2011 found that about 13% of Los Angeles County children were U.S. citizens with at least one parent lacking legal status.
Trump ended temporary protected status for citizens of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Honduras. The provision was designed to help citizens of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster or other conditions that prevent them from immediately returning safely.
Evelyn Hernandez, 44, has worked to maintain TPS as an organizer with the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. She came to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1992, toward the end of the country’s decadelong civil war.
Her protection under the program ends in September 2019. But the mother of three sons said her fight is far from over: “We are not going to give up.”