Immigration rhetoric frightening to many
More residents requesting citizenship help
With all the focus on illegal immigration and potential deportations, Porterville resident Maria Perez said she is relieved she is a citizen.
An only child, Perez, who is originally from Guadalajara, the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Jalisco, left her mother and father and moved to the U.S. with her husband in 1976 when she was 16 years old.
Unable to effectively communicate in English, Perez was intimidated and scared, but found solace in a job her husband — whom she is now divorced from — helped her find where she designed curtains and other household items.
About 10 years later, Perez, who lived in Orange County at the time, became a legal resident after President Ronald Reagan in November of 1986 signed and enacted the Simpson-mazzoli Act — which, among other things, legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 1, 1982. Some 25 years later, Perez, who gave birth to five children in the U.S., became a citizen, a time in her life where she never felt so alive.
“I was really happy,” said Perez, whose youngest son, Ethan Hernandez, helped translate her words. “Life has been better as a citizen because I have more benefits, I have a right to express my voice and I just feel a part of here now.”
Landing a job in Tulare County as a home care provider enabled Perez to move her family to Porterville where rent was much more affordable and she was able to get more bang for her buck.
With at least two sons in college and the others living their lives with their own families, Perez said she and her family are living the American Dream.
However, she remains disgusted by President Donald Trump and his executive order on immigration, which has separated families and has caused many to feel uneasy.
“I have always had in my mind that this was a country of immigrants, and this ban is something I have never seen before,” Perez said. “There has always been the deportations, there has always been this and that, but to have a president who has gone this far to doing the things that he is doing, this is an embarrassment to America.”
Perez highly recommends anyone who is undocumented or a legal resident to apply for citizenship, a process several organizations in the county specialize in, two of which — O.L.A. Raza Inc. and Coalition For Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) — are right here in Porterville.
Perez’s second youngest son Daniel Penaloza, the state-wide organizer for CHIRLA — a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles County that focuses on immigrant rights — said ever since the organization’s local chapter in Porterville began its 100 days of free citizenship program, its hotline’s voicemail became so full that no one can leave a message anymore.
“We have so many phone calls that we still have to follow up with, and it is probably going to be a lot of people asking for citizenship with those phone calls so we are expecting it,” Penaloza said.
He said the local chapter started the free citizenship program on Jan. 21. Since that time, he said 326 applications have been filed, which is quite a feat given that “usually we only get 300 [applications] per year.”
“We got what we would expect in a year in three weeks,” Penaloza said. “It is pretty exciting, but at the same time we know that they are probably scared, especially with the Muslim situation that happened where you had green card holders that were being stopped at the border and at the airports.” For those wanting to take advantage of the free citizenship program, Penaloza said they first have to set up an appointment with one of the organization’s attorneys, which they can do by calling 1-888-624-4752.
However, because the organization doesn’t have an office in Porterville, Penaloza said residents would have to drive to its nearest office in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the northern San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles.
Penaloza said because the process is lengthy and tedious, he encourages residents to start as soon as possible.
“They have to go to consultation to see if they qualify, and then we give them other documents asking for additional information such as your pay stub for the last five years or where you live, your birth certificate, your passport, all of this information that we have in a packet for them,” he said.
He added that the organization will then conduct a follow-up meeting where residents are required to bring back all of the documents completed, after which case they can apply for a fee waiver, which can waive the cost the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) charges to process their application.
“Since we are doing it for free and if they apply for the waiver, they can get the process technically all done without having to spend a cent,” Penaloza said, noting that USCIS charges well over $500.
After getting a response from USCIS, residents can then take a citizenship exam, which tests one’s ability to read, write and speak basic English and examines one’s understanding of basic history, government and the constitution. After passing the exam, the only thing left is to attend a naturalization ceremony, which Penaloza said is usually held in Fresno for those living in the Central Valley.
In addition to CHIRLA, residents can also seek out the services from O.L.A. Raza Inc. — a grassroots nonprofit education center dedicated to providing immigration and citizenship services to new immigrants, low-income persons and students.
Roberto de la Rosa, JD, the executive director of the nonprofit, said phones in all five of the organization’s offices — located in Bakersfield, Porterville, Tulare, Delano and Visalia — have also been ringing nonstop for the past several weeks, which he is certain has to do with Trump’s announcement that he is going to sign a revised version of his executive order on immigration on Wednesday.
De la Rosa said most people in the community were starting to become nervous about their future in the country even before Trump was sworn in, but noted that now Trump is president things have been getting worse.
“Once he was sworn in people started to freak out because of all of the rhetoric, all the campaign rhetoric that was out there, and a lot of it having to do with the threat of massive deportations,” he said. “It is almost like anything that is being done against other nationalities, people from other countries, is what is going to be done to us.” To protect themselves, De la Rosa said many people are looking at a number of different options, the chief one is gaining citizenship, a step he said many are afraid to take in this day and time.
“They are interested, the calls are coming in, but there’s that level of concern that they have,” De la Rosa said, adding, “Folks are becoming really concerned and nervous about identifying themselves because there is a history.”
A history indeed, one that involved countless immigration raids and immigration roundups, which De la Rosa said is why many are so apprehensive to the point where they are refusing to go to church and even send their kids to school.
“That’s sort of like the psychological impact on communities like Porterville,” he said.
De la Rosa said his organization receives around 50 calls a day and meets with an average of 15 people per day, and encourages more to come.
“You have to earn it,” he said. “It is not easy, it is expensive, and it is difficult, and so you have to earn it so you can appreciate it, and you can respect it.”
For more information, contact O.L.A. Raza Inc.’s Porterville office at 784-1121.