DACA students fear deportation in the midst of waiting for new legislation

Joshua Ceballos/News Assistant Director

Dreamers at FIU are awaiting new legislation to replace Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in the face of possible deportation.

DACA was a program passed by President Barack Obama in 2012 that provided amnesty for people living in the U.S. without documentation who were brought to the country as children.

For Waleskis Giraud, a junior double majoring in political science and psychology, she didn’t know she was different from her classmates until halfway through high school.

“In high school, I asked my parents to get my license, and my parents said I couldn’t really do that… because I didn’t have any paperwork,” said Giraud.

Giraud said that she came to the U.S. from Venezuela around the year 2000 because her parents feared for their lives due to their important positions in the banking industry in their country. She, like other children of undocumented immigrants, was unable to receive a driver’s license or participate in other activities that native citizens could because she did not have a social security number.

“This was rough. Everybody kept asking me when I was going to get my permit, and my excuse was that my parents wouldn’t let me,” said Giraud.

Giraud said that a year after this ordeal,  Obama released DACA, and many new doors were opened to her and other Dreamers, including the chance to get a license, work, and apply for college.

The FIU Law School was the location of a DACA clinic where Giraud was able to submit the many records her mother kept in the hopes of one day getting documentation for her. Giraud said she and hundreds of other undocumented youth in South Florida were able to apply for DACA.

“That was my first time meeting other people that were in my situation, so I got really involved with them,” said Giraud. “I started working with a program called Students ‘Working for Equal Rights,’ and I ended up filling out hundreds of other applications [for other people].”

According to floridaimmigrant.org, SWER is an organization founded by undocumented immigrant youth to raise awareness for their issues and work towards equal access.

Giraud went on to become a Panther Camp Facilitator at FIU, as well as a participant in Greek Life.

On Sept. 5, 2017, President Donald Trump released a statement on Whitehouse.gov, which stated that his administration would be phasing out DACA in the interest of “American jobs and American Security.”

Recipients of DACA, his statement read, will continue to receive their benefits until the date of expiration, which is two years from the last renewal by the recipient. Once DACA is completely phased out, it would be up to Congress to come up with a better policy.

Juan Carlos Gomez, immigration attorney and director of the Carlos A. Costa Immigration & Human Rights Clinic at FIU, feels that this act of repealing DACA was a bad decision and an act of cruelty.

“Mr. [Jeff] Sessions, the current attorney general, was very happy when he announced the end of DACA,” said Gomez. “In a very cruel, inhumane, and anti-American way, he has ended a program that dealt with a problem that we have because Congress has refused to act reasonably.”

Deferred action and amnesty, Gomez said, has been used before in the U.S. as a government power to deal with complicated immigration issues, such as with Cubans arriving seeking asylum.

Giving political amnesty to immigrants is a power that the President has every right to exercise under the Immigration Nationality Act, according to Gomez.

In an email to students, President Mark B. Rosenberg responded to the current administration’s actions with DACA.

“I encourage all DACA students who are enrolled at FIU to stay in school and work hard to finish their degrees as soon as possible… Like you, I am hopeful that Congress will take positive action in the coming months,” stated Rosenberg’s email.

Dinora Orozco, sophomore political science major and native of Guatemala, believes that FIU should be doing more than just making promises.

“I spoke to the [SGC-MMC] president on Twitter and said ‘If you say you’re for DACA, then actions do speak louder than words,’” said Orozco. “You know you hear it from politicians, but who do you believe?”

In a statement to Panther Press, SGC-MMC president Krista Schmidt said that SGA is standing with DACA recipients.

“Currently, Student Government’s legislative priority is DACA. The SGA Department of Governmental Relations is working with the FIU Office of Governmental Relations to encourage the South Florida delegation of Members of Congress to join in a bipartisan effort that would allow our DACA students to continue studying and positively contributing to our society,” Schmidt’s statement read.

Orozco said that she wonders what FIU will do once DACA is completely terminated, because despite FIU being an international school, it is still a school that follows laws.

Orozco is very frustrated with all of the struggling that she has had to do since coming to this country with finding work and looking for opportunities to get an education. Despite spending the majority of her life in the U.S., she is treated differently than both native students and international students, she said.

“What makes me different from international students?” said Orozco. “If I didn’t tell people I was undocumented, would they know I was undocumented? It’s very hard.”

Students like Giraud and Orozco are not sure what to do besides waiting to be deported when their DACA eventually expires.

But students, Gomez said, should not take any drastic action.

“Do not do anything crazy. Do not get married in a moment of crisis,” Gomez said. “Remember that if you marry for immigration purposes, you could be barred for the rest of your life and you could face criminal sanctions.”

Students, he said, can visit the FIU Law Clinic, located in Law 1001.

Until some new legislation is made to replace DACA, Gomez said that students should continue to do well in school and wait patiently for the government to do what is right.

Students can also email Gomez at jcagomez@fiu.edu with any pertinent immigration and DACA related questions.