NJ.com (Op-Ed)
By Alma Aparicio
August 20, 2018
In many ways, I am just like many young Americans you may know. I am a 20-year-old university student who has often been more concerned with balancing my studies, a part-time job, and hanging out with friends than the ideological war being waged over immigration.
I get it.
“But I am not there.” “I don’t see it.” “How does this affect my life?” Ask yourself, does that sound familiar?
In those instances, however, when I, too, have wanted to tell myself that I am not walking in immigrants’ shoes, my mother has always been there to remind me that I am.
Since I was a young girl, she would tell me, “Remember, you are not like the others.” It wasn’t until I got much older, when I was starting to chart my own future – putting my dreams into action – that I realized what she had meant.
As she would later explain to me, I was 3 years old when she made the tough decision to give us the prospects of a better life and travel from our native Puebla, Mexico, to live with my uncle in Camden.
Over the years, she would remind me that we were from Mexico, but it never registered that I wasn’t American – or at least an American citizen.
When I was a teenager, I began to apply for colleges and suddenly found myself asking what a Social Security number was and where I could find mine. “Wait, why don’t I have one?” I asked.
As my mother explained how the law works, the realization was understandably tough for me to take. In one moment, I was just like my classmates: dreaming of what I wanted to be, where I would attend school, and what my life would be like. The next, I was being told that a piece of paper – or the lack of one – said I was different than my peers.
Fortunately for me, in the next breath, my mother has always been there to tell me that, although I will encounter obstacles that others won’t face, I am smart, talented, and able to succeed no matter what comes my way.
Consequently, after graduating in the top 10 percent of my class at LEAP Academy University Charter School in Camden, I enrolled at Rutgers University-Camden, where I am a rising senior English major with a double minor in Latin American studies and political science. I am also preparing for a career in law, working part-time for an immigration attorney in Philadelphia, where my bilingual skills have been helpful in communicating with clients.
Since 2012, I have dutifully submitted the requisite documents every two years to maintain my protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
But the clock keeps ticking on DACA. With so much uncertainty concerning the future of the program, there are many people like me – walking in my shoes – whose lives hang in the balance. We don’t know what could happen to us or whether we are going to make careers out of all our hard work.
As anyone can attest, it takes a certain bit of faith in yourself to accomplish anything in life. Imagine doing that with the specter of not knowing that all your hopes and dreams – and life as you know it – could one day be null and void.
President Donald Trump has said that the future of DACA – and, more importantly, the path to citizenship for the more than 800,000 people who came to the U.S. illegally as children – hinges on increased border security, particularly the construction of a border wall. Meanwhile, Democrats have expressed the need for increased border security, but vowed not to support the construction of a wall.
You may be surprised to know that I, myself, am a little conflicted about the idea of open borders. Part of me wants to support the idea, but I also believe that the United States should be able to guarantee its national security and keep out unwanted criminals or those who mean to cause us harm.
However, I also believe that necessary steps must be taken to ensure that good people – those fleeing violence and prejudice, those seeking a better life for themselves and their families, just as my mother did for me – are not lumped into these same groups. And in doing so, the United States will remain a country that welcomes those seeking refuge with open arms.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, I think that it is unfair to use DACA recipients as bargaining chips in these ongoing negotiations. At worst, it is cruel and inhumane. At best, it holds children accountable for choices that were made not of their own volition. And in many instances, these children would not become aware of these made choices until many years – sometimes decades – later.
If we learned anything from the horrific images showing children and their parents separated at the southern U.S. border, it was the visceral, appalled reaction from people across the political spectrum when you saw the faces – the actual lives – affected by the ongoing war over immigration.
So then where are the pictures of us so-called DREAMers?
You don’t have to look too far. We are where we’ve always been: your friends, neighbors, classmates, co-workers, and relatives. We have – and continue – to make valuable contributions to society, although the political headwinds are making it much more difficult to do so.
Several years ago, we were told to step out of the shadows, show our faces, and be granted temporary protections that once-upon-a-time we couldn’t dream were even necessary. Congress doesn’t have an answer just yet, we were told, but keep the faith; one is on the way.
So here I stand. Waiting. Still dreaming. Hoping that we’re going to get it right.
There was a not-so-distant time ago when I, too, was scared to let anyone know my DACA status. I also didn’t know the power of my words, and it is time for others to realize the power of theirs.
Call your legislators and tell them to recognize the faces – the actual lives – of those seeking their rightful citizenship in a country that, for many of us, is the only one we have ever known.
Alma Aparicio is a rising senior English major with a double minor in Latin American studies and political science at Rutgers-Camden.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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