by Raisa Camargo
Editorial cartoonists delight in exaggerating the size of Barack Obama’s ears, but families being torn apart by federal immigration policies are wondering if he’s ever going to listen to them. In the latest attempt to repair the nation’s broken immigration system, more than 500 children paraded outside the White House on July 28 to prevent the deportation of their parents.
Elementary school students Jonathan Monterosa and Edgar, who didn’t reveal his last name, traveled from Chicago to stand and march for more than two hours under a blazing sun.
“We want to keep ourfamily united,” Jonathan told Hispanic Link.
Edgar added that his father feared deportation as he described his personal terror — and he’d be left alone with nothing to eat.
An estimated four million children are citizens living in the United States, mostly born here to an undocumented parent, according to data collected in 2008 by the Pew HispanicCenter.
The number of children who risk losing their parents overwhelms the 400,000 persons the Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency (ICE) anticipates deporting this fiscal year. That is nearly a 10 percent increase above the total in 2008 during the Bush administration.
Congressman Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois, speaking before the march, bared the empathy he felt for the children while stressing the importance of immigration reform to a crowd of more than 1,500 persons. He was arrested in May for civil disobedience along with 35 advocates in favor of the DREAM Act outside the White House.
“The next time I come to the White House and they shackle me, I am not going to bring $100 to pay the fine. If they let me go, I am coming back because of these innocent children,” Gutiérrez, who is Puerto Rican, said in Spanish. He repeated his promise severaltimes. “We are not going to permit leaving them without shelter, without justice and left in need of their parents’ love.”
Advocates and children representing organizations in states spread from coast to coast — Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Texas, Illinois, California — waved signs with slogans and wore shirts emblazonedwith such pleas as “Don’t Deport My Mom” and “It’s in your hands, Mr. President.”
Daisy Cuevas, the 7-year-old girl who told Michelle Obama this past spring about her mother’s undocumented status, energetically led the march.
The crowd shouted in unison, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido, Obama escucha, estamos en la lucha, aquí estamos y no nos vamos!”
Although the vibrant speeches captivated onlookers across the streets, for parents waiting on their deportation status, the march was more than just a gamble.
Viviana Oxlaj López worried about her six children’s wellbeing if she is deported back to Guatemala. She said her 10-yearold daughter was becoming ill thinking about the separation. Hispanic Link.
