DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, they knew that Trump would probably try to take that away from them, and they should have acted as if their lives here in the United States depended on them. How many of them were out there working with Democratic groups knocking at doors to convince their neighbors to vote against Trump?
I know that here in my neighborhood, I had one person, a black female, come and leave something on my door. I did not have anyone come knocking. My wife and I vote all the time. If you won’t help yourself, why do you expect others to do it for you?
Reyna Montoya was 10 when she and her family fled violence in Tijuana and illegally immigrated to the U.S. Growing up in Arizona, she worried even a minor traffic violation could lead to her deportation.
She didn’t feel relief until 11 years later in 2012, when she received a letter confirming she had been accepted to a new program for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
“All of the sudden, all these possibilities opened up,” Montoya said, fighting back tears. The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program granted her and hundreds of thousands of others two-year, renewable permits to live and work in the U.S. legally.
But as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, after an unsuccessful bid to end DACA in his first term, the roughly 535,000 current recipients are bracing yet again for a whirlwind of uncertainty. Meanwhile, a years-long challenge to DACA could ultimately render it illegal, leaving people like Montoya without a shield from deportation.
“I have to take his (Trump’s) words very seriously, that when they say ‘mass deportation,’ it also includes people like me,” said Montoya, who runs Aliento, an Arizona-based advocacy organization for immigrant rights.
Here in Harris County, the Democratic leadership has two issues that are all important to them: Gay rights and abortion; immigration comes in very far behind those two if it even makes the radar screen. An example would be when Lane Lewis, the Harris County Democratic Party Campaign Chair, locked the doors to the headquarters and refused to talk to the DREAMERS.
Democrats are no friends to people who are here illegally. Honestly, I don’t see them being very helpful to those Hispanics who are here legally. Certainly, their history does not suggest that. Most of the people who are elected to office are beholding to the Gay and progressive community.
Supreme Court allows Texas to arrest people who enter illegally. I am sure that some people will get Upset, but there will be very little difference from what happened when Obama was president.
Harris County used to be the deportation capital of the United States.
Look at the East End, where the Latino community took root, and compare the part where gentrification has begun with the rest of the community. You will see that more resources go to those communities. But further east, they did get to the Greyhound bus station.
Back in August, I wrote that instead of pity parties, people here illegally need to knock on doors and get people to vote for the Democrats. Well, they didn’t listen, so they could have all those pity stories, but it would be too late.
FYI, you may want to quit shooting fireworks. Some irritated neighbors may decide to call ICE.