Jon Greenberg Photo
Rising Yale junior and undocumented person Alejandra Ortega at Friday’s discussion.
“I grew up in this country undocumented. I grew up in the shadows before DACA,” Isabella Ceballos recounted, her voice breaking with emotion. “I was 15 when my family received our permanent residency … and once I was eligible to be a citizen, I almost didn’t want it. A part of me was so angry. And then I realized that I had to do it, because I saw so many people still in the shadows.”
Ceballos directed those words to U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Mayor Toni Harp at a roundtable discussion on immigration policy Friday at the Fair Haven Community Health Center.
Ceballos, the executive director of a girls’ program called Horizons at Hartford’s Ethel Walker School, was one of several currently or formerly undocumented people who asked the officials present to defend Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-era program that allows undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children to live and work in the country.
Republicans have shot down recent attempts by Democrats in Congress to convert pieces of DACA into law. Some in New Haven and across the country worry that President Donald Trump, who rode to victory atop a wave of rhetoric about hard-line immigration policy and ramped up deportation efforts, will discontinue the program. This would leave hundreds of thousands of young people, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for as long as they can remember, in danger of not being able to be employed and of being deported.
Isabella Ceballos.
Murphy asked the crowd Friday to give him stories he could bring back to Washington to aid his fight to preserve the program and to defend undocumented people. Those who spoke provided him with those stories.
Erika Vergara, a DACA recipient who works for Apostle Immigrant Services, a not-for-profit that helps immigrants Greater New Haven achieve citizenship, legal residence and work authorization, said DACA gave her employment opportunities and allows her to use her college degree to pursue her passion of helping the immigrant community.
She said DACA also allowed her to obtain a driver’s license.
“When I got my driver’s license, I cried, because it was a document, legible to the state, with my picture and my date of birth,” Vergara said. “Getting my social security was also important because now I actually have rights, whereas before I … could have been thrown away.”
A man named Jose who spoke on Friday said he was able to open two businesses because of DACA. He noted that it’s impossible to get many jobs and internships “without a certain level of documentation.” Jose called it ironic that many of the people that come into his businesses have cars decorated with Trump stickers.
“Little do they know that we’re part of their community already, that we’re the parents at their kids’ schools and that we interact regularly,” he said of these Trump supporters. “I think one of the problems is they can’t put a face to the issue.”
Mayor Harp.
Isaac Montilla, who also spoke Friday, said he had to wait two years after graduating high school in 2007 to go to college because of his undocumented status.
One of Friday’s speakers, Alejandra Ortega, is a rising junior at Yale University who is undocumented person but not a recipient of DACA. She came to the U.S. in 2007, the cutoff for DACA eligibility. She reminded the officials present that in order to protect people like her and her parents, they have to push for legislation that reaches beyond the scope of DACA.
“Many of my friends who are here benefit from DACA, and it’s amazing to see that and obviously I encourage you to fight for that, but that’s not enough,” she said.
Ortega said she is thankful for the opportunities that Yale provides her as a student, but said she realized when she went to an internship conference hosted by her school that her immigration status bars her from applying to any internships.
Blumenthal addresses forum.
The officials present were unanimous in their support for DACA recipients across the state. Murphy, responding to Ortega, assured her that he and the other hosts intend to use “every lever at [their] disposal to make this right for everyone” and to create a “comprehensive pathway to citizenship.”
As the meeting neared its end, DeLauro thanked those in the crowd for giving her and her partners “the strength and energy to fight back.” Harp reminded the crowd that “the only thing that ever changes this country is resistance and working together so that we can speak truth to power.” Blumenthal assured the crowd, “we are on the right side of history.”
Murphy closed the meeting with one last pledge of commitment.
“We are not going to give up. Let’s stay together, let’s stay tight as a coalition, let’s fight hard,” he said.