As immigration debate rages, ‘Dreamers’ await their fate

Last updated Dec 21, 2018

By Lucy Nicholson

DACA recipient Javier Hernandez Kistte, 27, poses for a portrait outside his home in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 24, 2018. Hernandez Kistte is a UC Irvine graduate who now works for a visual effects company. He came to the U.S. from Mexico City when he was eight years old. Hernandez Kistte said that DACA allowed him and his brother to finish their degrees by allowing them to work to pay for tuition. “My parents are still undocumented and as a family we struggle with the anxiety that it’s possible for them to get deported at any moment. That anxiety has now risen with the uncertainty that me and my brother might return to having an undocumented status… It’s not only about us. I’ve heard of people who are willing to negotiate terms that will give us the right to be here, give us DACA, but will make life a living nightmare for other people and I don’t want that,” he said. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

As U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders discuss the fate of some 700,000 immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, the young people whose lives hang in the balance fret about their future.

Reuters spoke to five people covered by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Many older members of the group, nicknamed “Dreamers,” balance college classes and jobs amid a looming March 5 deadline set by Trump to repeal the program unless Congress preserves it.

“I knew DACA was going to be rescinded, or at least I thought it was, the day he won the election,” said Javier Hernandez Kistte, 27, referring to Trump’s anti-immigration stance during the 2016 presidential campaign. Kistte arrived in the country with his family from Mexico City when he was 8 years old.

Trump wants tighter restrictions on immigration that he deems necessary to improve national security and protect the jobs of working class Americans. Supporters of the DACA program say eliminating it would punish people who were too young to know the consequences of their family’s decision to move to the U.S. and remove productive people from the economy.

Last week, senior White House officials outlined a plan that would offer a path to citizenship to about 2 million young illegal immigrants. The proposal also called for a border wall and curbs on some legal immigration programs, measures some Democrats have called unacceptable.

DACA recipient Karla Estrada, 26, walks to the station to go to work in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 23, 2018. Estrada is a UCLA graduate who works as a paralegal assistant while preparing to attend law school. She came to the U.S. from Morelos, Mexico, when she was five years old. “DACA has always been very problematic and temporary and it’s not an ideal thing. It has given us the liberty to work, legally, without fear that in three months we’re going to get fired because we have no social [security number]. I have to take care of myself in this country but I also have to take care of my mom and dad and brother in Mexico… The thing that scares me the most is not being able to take care of my family… I think it’s important for all DACA recipients to understand that DACA or any type of legislation, although very beneficial… does not define who you are as a human being and does not give you any more or any less dignity than you already have,” Estrada said. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Some DACA beneficiaries said they did not realize where their families were headed when they set off for the United States.

“My parents told me we were coming to Disneyland,” said Karla Estrada, 26. “We did not go to Disneyland.”

Living under the radar and working illegally, several of the young people recalled rough, impoverished neighborhoods, and seeing family members suffer depression or abuse drugs.

Barbara Hernandez (center), 26, of Santa Ana, California, said she had a brother who was fatally shot in a flurry of gang violence.

DACA recipient Barbara Hernandez (C), 26, participates in a protest for a clean Dream Act, in Anaheim, California, U.S., January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

“That threw our family into a really big depression and my mom and my dad separated,” she said.

DACA, which took effect in 2012, allowed Hernandez to work in education, but she quit her job when Trump said he was rescinding the program.

Brian Caballero, 25, lives in a converted ambulance on the campus of California State Polytechnic University in Pomona near Los Angeles, where he is pursuing a degree in electrical engineering.

DACA recipient Martha Valenzuela, 23, leaves her office at lunchtime in Orange, California, U.S., January 23, 2018. Valenzuela is a Cal State Fullerton graduate who came to the U.S. from Sinaloa, Mexico, when she was two years old. Valenzuela’s mother crossed the Arizona desert to join her and her father in the U.S. When she heard about Trump rescinding DACA, Valenzuela said: “It broke me… It’s traumatizing… because I’ve lived in this country for 21 years… We all want a pathway to citizenship. We all want permanent protection for us and our families… The reason this country labeled us as ‘Dreamers’ is because we want something ó as if that dream is unattainable. No, If we can dream it, we can achieve it… It takes guts to have a dream and it takes guts to fight for it.” REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Martha Valenzuela, 23, was brought to the U.S. when she was 2 years old. She has no memories of Mexico.

DACA allowed her to get a driver’s license and to leave an informal job at a taqueria where she earned less than minimum wage. Now she works for a public relations firms as an account coordinator.

Looking at the possibility of the program being eliminated, Valenzuela is balancing preparations for a possible return to Mexico with activist work aimed at preserving DACA.

“It takes guts to have a dream and it takes guts to fight for it,” she said.

Writing by Sharon Bernstein