It was through tears that I finished typing up the statement of one our asylum clients. This wasn’t the first asylum case I’ve worked on, but it was the first one after Trump’s administration and his recent executive bill to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Reading about the client’s fears were terrifying to me. He wrote of returning to a country where he’s been threatened with death and no longer recognizes, of having to leave behind his children who dream about going to college in this country and are constantly anxious at the thought of not having their dad by their side, and of leaving all the responsibility to their mother who earns less than minimum wage. Nothing is worse than hearing a heartbreaking story from a client and not being able to offer an immediate solution.
Saddening stories like these are ones I hear everyday now that I am in the immigration law firm. I started working there about two years ago, right after my 20th birthday. While the stress and workload of working at a law firm can make you crack at times, working here has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I have been able to help so many individuals and families stay together, and I know I can one day make a living out of this.
Tensions have been high at the immigration level firm this past month. I’ve given clients my personal number in case they can’t reach their own attorneys. Whether it’s to answer their questions, calm down their anxiety or have them vent, I always try to make myself available to hear them out. Although I have the privilege of being a citizen of this country, I feel their pain through my parents narrative and my own childhood.
I spent a great deal of my childhood with my parents being undocumented during times when I didn’t fully understand the severity of that word. I didn’t understand that from one day to the next, my family could be torn apart. I don’t take my parents sacrifices for granted: I’ve seen them cry when they missed their family back in Peru, and I’ve seen them work day and night to provide for my brother and I. This is the same kind of sacrifice I see through the clients who are undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children.
DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was started by the Obama Administration in 2012. According to www.uscis.gov, it covers children who arrived to the U.S. before their 16th birthday and before June 2007. Although it doesn’t grant you federal financial aid, it does give you a renewable two-year work permit and exemption from deportation. It gives students the peace of mind to be able to put themselves out there without the fear of being sent back to the country they were born in.
I have friends and have had numerous clients that depend on the DACA program. These young people were brought to this country before they had any say on any major decision in their lives. They should not have to suffer over the decisions made by their parents, decisions that were, of course, made with good intentions.
Undocumented students have been marginalized and neglected and their potential is under-realized. There is so much more than can be done to DACA, but for now, this is the only solution that is available. We can’t have Mr. Trump put an end to this program and deport thousands of students that don’t remember or know of life outside of the United States. This is their home and where they want to succeed.
This is immigrant America. This is what this country was founded on.
Photo credits: www.xpatnation.com