Dreaming of a blue 5-by-3.5 booklet
My roommate and I were both born in Mexico and now live in Colorado. We both have loving parents who raised us in the United States and worked hard to provide us a roof and an education. Both our brains have been thoroughly riddled by American pop culture. English is our first language. There is, however, one crucial distinction.
I have an American passport. Although we are both Americans, that blue 5-by-3.5-inch booklet of bound paper means that the investments my parents made for me will never be in danger of being lost. With President Donald Trump’s cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, he has turned my roommate into an American in all but papers.
There are 17,000 “Dacamented” individuals living in Colorado. Losing them means a blow of $856.9 million to the state’s economy, according to the Center for American Progress. Nationwide, the country stands to forfeit $460.3 billion over the next decade.
However, understanding the loss by simply looking at the numbers is reductive. People are more than a statistic published by either the Colorado Department of Labor or the U.S. Bureau of Labor.
Dacamented people occupy all walks of life: custodian, student, doctor. Living under semi-legal status, these immigrants are allowed to work and pay taxes, but not collect on most federal benefits — even using federal student loans. They face a cruel absurdity. DACA recipients have to seek permission from the country they’ve grown up in to be eligible to work so they can pay to continue their education. In other words, they have to get permission to pay their bills. Such is life for the nearly 500 undocumented students at both Metropolitan State University of Denver and the University of Colorado Denver, and the many more scattered throughout Colorado’s community colleges.
Seeing so many people show up in support of last week’s DACA rally at the Auraria campus in Denver was heartening. It was a reminder that this country is still worth believing in.
One theme continually surfaced at the rally. Love. A press conference or protest never goes by without the same story being told. The names are different but the circumstances are always the same. Mother and father brought their children to the United States to pursue a better life. Faced with the same choices, what parent could truthfully say they would stay in the country of their origin under potentially dangerous circumstances? Does every parent not want their child to live a better life than they did?
Fortunately, Colorado’s lawmakers have rallied around the Dacamented. Sens. Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet are co-sponsoring the DREAM Act, which would shield Dacamented immigrants from deportation and create a path to citizenship for them. They join Reps. Diana Degette and Mike Coffman, who have already stated their support for the Dacamented. Unfortunately, not all of Colorado’s congressional delegation is of the same mind on this. Time will tell if they join the right side of history.
Only the vagaries of life separate my roommate and I. She played the hand she was dealt to the best of her ability. Working against every disadvantage, she managed to reach university. This year she graduated from MSU Denver with honors.
Moving forward, Coloradans should see Dacamented immigrants like her as fellow countrymen. A piece of paper does not define their hearts. They are American. This is their home. The same spirit of rebellion that coursed through the souls of John Adams and George Washington spurs the Dacamented to fight for recognition in this country.
I look forward to the day when my roommate and the 17,000 other Dacamented Coloradans have a blue, 5-by3.5-inch bound booklet to call their own.
Esteban Fernandez is a senior studying journalism at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He is editor in chief of The Metropolitan, MSU Denver’s newspaper.