NBC News
By Suzanne Gamboa
February 4, 2015
Once
the target of their protests, President Barack Obama huddled Tuesday
with a handful of young immigrants to hear how much he's helped them and
to reassure them he'd
veto legislation to deport them.
The
young immigrants who met with him had benefited from a 2012 action
Obama took granting relief from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Beyond taking them off the deportation list, the
action also allowed many young immigrants to work legally.
"He's
a champion for us. He changed our lives for us completely. I'm forever
going to look back years later and be like, 'President Obama changed my
life completely.'"
said Blanca Gamez who said
she didn't participate in labeling the president "deporter in chief"
last year when immigrant activists were pushing for executive action.
Gamez,
of Las Vegas, holds a political science and English degree from
University of Las Vegas and is pursuing a law degree. Originally from
Sonora, Mexico, Gamez said
her sister is a U.S. citizen and so was able to sponsor her father for
legal permanent residency.
Her
mother is here illegally, but can now apply for DAPA under Obama's most
recent executive action for parents of legal resident or U.S. citizen
children.
The
meeting served a dual purpose. It was timed to highlight the ongoing
effort by Republicans in Congress to block the president's more recent
executive action on immigration
and to humanize the consequences.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has been keeping up some of that opposition.
"The
president's unlawful amnesty provides work permits, Medicare, Social
Security, and free tax credits to 5 million people illegally present in
the United States - taking
jobs and benefits directly from struggling Americans," he said.
Action
Obama took late last year allows more young immigrants here illegally
to apply, beginning Feb. 18, for three years of deportation relief and
work permits. It also
would allow parents of U.S. citizen and legal resident children to
apply for similar benefits, known as DAPA.
But
also Obama sought to highlight the youths' stories to ensure immigrants
apply for the relief he's made possible, helping to build
re-enforcements against Republican
efforts to expel the 11 million immigrants now living in the U.S.
illegally.
Steven
Arteaga of Houston said Obama told the young people in the meeting that
the Republican maneuvering on the Homeland Security spending bill was
mere theatrics, because
he has the votes to stop legislation that includes amendments to undo
his immigration actions and even if it passed, he would veto it.
The
bill offered by Senate Republicans Tuesday failed to get enough votes
to move forward. The House already passed a bill with the immigration
amendments.
"All
the Dreamers that are out there and all those who qualified for my
executive action moving forward, I want you to know I am confident in my
ability to implement this
program over the next two years," Obama said after meeting with the
youths. "And I am confident that the next president and the next
Congress and the American people will ultimately recognize why this is
the right thing to do."
A
staffer who attended the meeting said Praeli's story seemed to touch
Obama emotionally. He was seen wiping beneath his eye as Praeli cried
while telling the president
about seeing her mother break down and hug the iPad she was using to
watch the funeral of her mother, Praeli's grandmother.
Arteaga
also took aim at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who is leading a fight against
Obama's executive action through a lawsuit that has been joined by
several states.
The
event also had some overtones for the presidential race. As noted by
Maria Praeli, of Hamden, Conn., who met with Obama, the more people who
get deportation relief
the harder it will be for a presidential candidate to say he or she
would get rid of the privilege.
"It
would not be a very smart political move for the next presidential
candidate to come out and say I'm going to get rid of this program that
so far has benefitted almost
700,000 undocumented individuals who are just trying to pursue an
education," said Praeli, 21, originally from Peru and a leader in the
United We Dream immigration activist group.
Some
70 percent of young immigrants who qualified for the original DACA
program applied, said Jean Yannick Diouf, 22, of Dakar, Senegal a
student at the University of
Maryland who said DACA helped him provide for his family after his
father no longer lived with them.
The
intention is for the young immigrants, all involved in their community -
Diouf mentors younger children - to take back their messages and
encourage other immigrants
living illegally in the country to come forward and apply.
"I
don't think there is anybody in America who had a chance to talk to
these six young people … who wouldn't find it in their hearts to say
these kids are American just
like us and they belong here and we want to do right by them," Obama
said.
A
staffer who attended the meeting said Praeli's story seemed to touch
Obama emotionally. He was seen wiping beneath his eye as Praeli cried
while telling the president
about seeing her mother break down and hug the iPad she was using to
watch the funeral of her mother, Praeli's grandmother.
The
president mentioned the story generally while speaking to reporters.
"The stories you hear from these young people are parents who aspired
for a better life for their
children … Young people who have memories of their mothers weeping
because they couldn't go to the funeral of their parent now have seen
the prospect, the hope, that their lives can stabilize and normalize in
some way."
But
Obama is not cleared completely of criticism. The DRM Action Coalition,
one of the groups who actively protested against Obama and used the
"deporter-in-chief" label,
asked in a statement whether Obama would discuss in the meeting with
Dreamers the 7 million people who can't apply for DACA or DAPA "or
merely use the Dreamers as political props to win more Latino support
for Democrats?"
But
Obama is not cleared completely of criticism. One group asked the
President whether Dreams weren't being used as "political props."
Rishi
Singh of South Ozone Park, NY, raised the issue with the president, who
told the Dreamers he's done all he can within his power and it is now
up to Congress. "We
know the work is not done. We fought to get the most recent executive
action and will continue to fight so all of our people are able to come
out of the shadows and continue to live and work in dignity," Singh, and
immigration organizer with DRUM-South Asian
Organizing Center, said following the meeting.
Bati
Tsogtsaikhan of Arlington, Va., a fellow at the National Korean
American Service and Education Consortium, also attended the meeting
with Obama,
The
debate aside, Arteaga said he had rehearsed what he planned to say to
the president when he met with him, but when he saw Obama's long, lean
figure open the door to
the the Oval Office door, he was speechless and forgot to introduce
himself.
Diouf
said he relied on humor to counter his nervousness in meeting the
president. "I told him he looked familiar," Diouf said. "And he
laughed."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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