As I said, Alejandra Villamares was brought to the United States from
Mexico at age 1. She and her family first settled into a small town in
Colorado. Alejandra recounted difficult memories of growing up undocumented. She remembers her older sister coming home from the first grade, crying
because she had been bullied by other students because she could not
speak English. Her teachers did not understand her either and couldn't
help. She remembers her mother's anguish at the pain and bullying her
daughters endured. As Alejandra entered kindergarten, she began to go
through the same struggle. When she was 11, her father was deported to Mexico. Her mother ran
into financial problems. The threat of deportation was always lingering
in the back of her mind. Things weren't looking good. And yet, she told me on Monday, ``I wanted this to be my country so
badly. One thing I knew from the bottom of my heart was that I wanted
to stay here, and that I was an American.''
In 2012, when DACA came into effect, she got her chance. She earned
admission to Wesleyan, one of the best colleges in Connecticut, and she
followed her artistic passions by majoring in film studies with a
certificate in international relations. She felt more empowered to speak up and help others. She held
sessions for her peers at her high school to tell them about the
college application process, and later became a program coordinator of
an educational non-profit to mentor over 200 kids to navigate the
college application process. President Trump is putting a target on the backs of Alejandra and
others like her. They will be deported if we do not pass the Dream Act. In just a week, the President's decision has already sown confusion
and chaos. There have been reports of ICE temporarily detaining DACA
recipients, including reportedly 9 in Texas on Monday. Hurricanes
Harvey and Irma have devastated Texas and Florida, but the White House
has not announced any extension to the DACA renewal deadline. The administration has also been torn between two messages. The
President has toed an apologetic line, telling Dreamers that they have
``nothing to worry about'' and that he will ``revisit the issue'' if
Congress doesn't act--and yet his Department of Homeland Security has
said that Dreamers should prepare to leave.
Keywords matched
deported undocumented DACA deportation