Attorney Michael Kagan joins community organizations, activists and representatives at the East Las Vegas Community Center to discuss what President Donald Trump’s DACA decision means for the 13,000 Nevada DACA recipients on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017.
Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017 | 1:52 p.m.
Kathia Sotelo came to the United States from her home state of Michoacán, Mexico, when she was 7 years old.
With an uncertain future in the U.S., Sotelo attended school in Las Vegas as an undocumented immigrant, living in fear of deportation until President Barack Obama introduced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012. It granted Sotelo and her two younger sisters the legal right to not only stay in the country but to work and enroll at U.S. universities.
“It has allowed me and countless other DACA recipients to do great things for this country,” Sotelo said. “We’re able to live more to our potential.”
Through the DACA program, Sotelo, 21, became the primary breadwinner for her family and the first to attend college. A political science major at UNLV, she interned last summer in former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s office in Washington, D.C., shortly before his retirement at the end of the year.
But Sotelo and thousands of other Nevada DACA beneficiaries may soon feel that familiar fear again.
United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced today that the program would be rescinded — less than a month after it celebrated its five-year anniversary on Aug. 15.
More than 800,000 DACA beneficiaries, known also as dreamers, including an estimated 13,000 to 20,000 people living in Nevada, have been awarded a temporary stay in the United States.
“I’m not sure what to feel. One second I feel strong and resilient, but then I feel worried,” Sotelo said. “I got my DACA renewed in May, but there are so many people that will not get the chance to renew it.”
Sessions’ announcement means the Department of Homeland Security will no longer process new applications for the program and more than 600,000 current dreamers will have their legal stay in the U.S. revoked by 2019 unless Congress passes a law to allow them to stay.
Sotelo and other local dreamers interviewed today expressed mixed reactions in their belief of Congress’ ability to find a long-term solution.
Aaron Luna, who serves primarily Latino immigrants in Las Vegas at the nonprofit Hermandad Mexicana, has used DACA to study at UNLV and work to support his family since the program kicked off in 2012. While today’s announcement represents a “setback,” Luna said, he believes Congress will find a more permanent solution to allowing current DACA recipients to stay in the United States.
“There are proposals on the table, and it’s a matter developing those proposals,” Luna said. “It’s not an overnight process.”
“People need to call Congress and make them accountable,” he said. “There are many families here in Nevada affected by this.”
Luna said the Hermandad Mexicana office, 2900 Stewart Ave, was hit with “overwhelming” requests today from noncitizen immigrants seeking advice and guidance on what the rescinding of DACA means for them.
Oscar Ramirez, a 28-year-old dreamer who visited Hermandad Mexicana today, worried that he’d be more vulnerable for deportation without a congressional act when his DACA eligibility expires in March.
Ramirez, who graduated with an associates of business degree from the College of Southern Nevada in 2016 and now manages a Don Tortaco Mexican restaurant in North Las Vegas, said Congress’ track record on immigration suggests undocumented immigrants in the U.S. “don’t have a very good chance.”
“I think the possibility is there to make this better, because it could be a law instead of just an executive action,” Ramirez said in Spanish. “But this government has only worked against immigrants. What would make this current issue any different?”
Sotelo said she believed there eventually would be a legislative solution, but the uncertainty caused by today’s announcement will cause “distrust and fear” from immigrants in the U.S. toward the federal government.
“These next few months in between the eventual solution will be damaging,” she said. “But I’m certain they will come up with something.”
