New York–To the cry of “This is our home,” two hundred young “dreamers” and pro-immigration activists started a 230-mile, eighteen-day march from New York to Washington on Saturday, where a 230-mile, eighteen-day march began on November 12 decisive judgment on the DACA program, which avoids deportations. In a park south of Manhattan and with the Statue of Liberty in the background, civil organizations and political offices, including the state attorney general, Letitia James, offered their support for these “walkers,” who will not stop until they reached the steps of the Court claim the rights of the country’s immigrants.
The Supreme Will hear that day the arguments of the advocates of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), created in 2012 by executive order of then-President Barack Obama, in front of those of the current Donald Trump Administration, who announced his intention to rescind it in 2017.Once the arguments are heard, the highest court in the country will decide in the first half of 2020 whether or not Trump has the power to end the DACA, which protects from deportation and allows its beneficiaries to work legally , more than 700,000 young people who came to the United States as children.
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One of the organizers of the march is Mexican Martin Batalla Vidal, who two years ago sued Trump in a federal court in New York to combat DACA termination and resulted in a case that was joined by other beneficiaries such as him and the NGO Make The Road , of which he is a member. Speaking to Efe, Batalla, 28, said he wants to “be the voice” not only of DACA recipients, but also of the TPS (Temporary Protected Status), which has been eliminated for several countries and affects some 300,000 people, as well as “for the eleven million undocumented immigrants who do not have immigration relief.” A role doesn’t define who we are, we’ve been here since we were little. We are Americans at heart, this is our home and we are not leaving,” said the young man, who never thought the case was “to get to this end” and thanked the support of the “community behind us.” I denounced why DACA gave me the courage to say who I was. I used to be very afraid to say that I was gay and undocumented for fear of being deported, to be separated from my family,” recalled Batalla, a nursing assistant who attributes to this program the “opportunity” to study and be useful to society.
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The departure of the march took place in a family atmosphere and between the vindicative chants of the groups present, such as the Korean group National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), whose leader, Esther Jeon, co-organizer of the trek, urged greater mobilization of society.
Organizing works and that’s why we do it. It was the power of the people who gave us DACA in 2012. We won’t win because of the generosity of the Obama Administration, but (…) because other young undocumented activists before us fought for our collective liberation, Jeon said.
“Our collective liberation requires more than renewing protections against deportation for two years (…) Justice for our communities is to demilitarize borders, abolish ICE (migration authority), close concentration camps that the government funds each year, and gain citizenship for eleven million undocumented people,” he stressed. The protesters, who will march under the slogan “Home is here” encouraged people to join the cause upon their arrival in Washington or on social media, where New York Prosecutor James noted that he will defend DACA in the Supreme Court.
Original source in Spanish
