David Yaffe-Bellany Photos
Activists protest Supreme Court decision voiding executive order.
Tecpa.
Lupita Tecpa, a rising junior at Hillhouse High School, won’t be going on any family trips this summer.
Her father, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was deported nine years ago.
And although New Haven remains a “sanctuary city”, her mother, who is also undocumented, lives in constant fear that she too will be taken away.
“We really can’t go out when it’s sunny because of the raids,” Tecpa said. “It would be so hard to see the police take my mom and leave my sister and I.”
Tecpa, a short, dark-haired girl, is one of millions of children nationwide whose undocumented parents remain vulnerable to deportation after the Supreme Court voided an executive order designed to protect them in a decision announced Thursday.
Thursday evening — amid cries of “No more deportations” — Tecpa stood on the steps of the federal courthouse on Church Street alongside dozens of other activists protesting the decision as well as the broader issue of mass deportations.
The demonstration, in which activists waving banners chanted in English and Spanish, was organized by Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA).
“It’s important for us to listen to the people who are daily affected by these laws and to the stories that aren’t being told,” said ULA organizer Megan Fountain. “The murders of teachers and protesters in Mexico last week isn’t being talked about in the news.”
She was referring to the killing of six members of a teachers’ union that clashed with police in Oaxaca, Mexico last week. At Thursday’s rally, demonstrators held signs reading “Policia Asesina” and called for the ouster of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
The demonstration focused mostly on the fate of an executive order that once represented a beacon of hope for immigrant families across the country.
In November 2014, the Obama administration ordered that nearly five million undocumented immigrants with children born in the U.S. be allowed to “come out of the shadows” and join the workforce without fear of deportation.
That order, which was never fully implemented, triggered a year-and-a-half-long legal fight that culminated Thursday, as the Supreme Court reached a 4 – 4 deadlock that let stand an appeals court ruling blocking the order.
“I was shocked to find out that what I was fighting for in this country was denied,” said Fatima Rojas, a Mexican immigrant who declined to reveal her legal status.
Rojas’ young daughter, Anbar, a third-grader at Christopher Columbus Family Academy, recalled the moment her parents told her about the harsh reality of life as an undocumented immigrant in the United States.
“I felt sad, because I don’t want my parents to go away,” she said, pressing her head against her mother’s waist. “They take people away from this place. They separate families.”
Miguel Mendoza, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who moved to the U.S. in 1988, said that despite the ruling, the protest showcased one thing this country does well: free expression.
“I’m speaking the truth. I’m fighting for my rights,” he said. “In Mexico, the government would arrest me for speaking the truth.”
Mendoza added that the deaths in Oaxaca represent just the latest example of why undocumented Mexicans fight to stay in the United States
Tecpa, speaking in front of the crowd of demonstrators, said the Supreme Court has let down immigrant families across the country.
And, in an interview with the Independent, she said the decision will force her to continue the same cautious lifestyle that she has carefully practiced since before her father was deported.
“I have to stay independent enough in case [my parents] do leave,” she said. “But I need their support and their love just like every kid does.”