Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Las Vegas activists urge Democrats to act on immigration reform

Citizenship Now: Week of Action

Jessica Hill

Assemblyman Edgar Flores speaks during a four-day series of events called “Citizenship Now: Week of Action” outside the Lloyd D. George Courthouse Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021. Flores is a member of the newly renamed Nevada Latino Legislative Caucus, which is proposing to expand Medicaid to all Nevada residents, regardless of their citizenship status.

Las Vegas immigration advocates are hopeful that Democratic lawmakers deliver on promises to include a pathway to citizenship in the budget reconciliation bill that’s been whittled down in ongoing negotiations.

The UndocuCouncil Nevada Immigrant Coalition and other immigration allies are hosting the “Citizenship Now: Week of Action” to urge senators, particularly Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, to make sure the bill includes the $107 billion slated to go to immigration reform.

At a kickoff event Tuesday in front of the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, supporters held signs with messages like “Poder al Pueblo,” which translates to “power to the people,” while a mariachi group performed.

“We haven’t had any kind of immigration reform in over 30 years,” said Erika Castro, a member of the UndocuCouncil. “They talk about how we should go to the back of the line to adjust our status, but the reality is that there isn’t any line. The immigration system is broken. We want people to be able to actually adjust their status and get on the pathway to citizenship.”

The group wants Cortez Masto to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris to ignore the parliamentarian, which had ruled against the immigration reform effort in September, Castro said. Cortez Masto has promised to fight for DACA and immigration reform, but during the last presidential administration, Donald Trump made moves to curtail immigration progress, such as ending the DACA program and reducing legal immigration by 49%. 

Cortez Masto was unavailable for comment, but her staff did send along quotes from a recent NPR interview.

“We haven’t given up on including immigration reform in this bill, and we’re still working through the potential proposals with the parliamentarian,” Cortez Masto said in the interview. “Both Democrats and Republicans, we’ve said it for decades that our immigration system is broken, and we need to fix it. This is our opportunity to do just that.”

Cortez Masto said the government should be taking care of Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients and essential workers who were on the front line of the pandemic.

In Nevada, there are over 4,000 TPS recipients and 11,720 DACA recipients, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. TPS is a temporary status given to people who cannot return safely to their country, or the country is unable to handle the return of its citizens adequately, according to USCIS. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protects about 800,000 people known as Dreamers across the country who entered the U.S. unlawfully as children.

Many undocumented immigrants were essential workers during the pandemic who did not have the privilege to work from home, Castro said. They continued to go to work, to make sure families across the country had food on their tables.

“DACA doesn’t give people a pathway to citizenship,” said Karla Ramirez, a former DACA recipient who recently became a lawful permanent resident in April. “DACA is simply a Band-Aid for hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients across the country. And we spent the last four years fighting just to stay in our homes while the DACA program was under attack.”

She is excited that she became a permanent resident, but she is still worried because her family is of mixed statuses. Some of her siblings are citizens because they were born in the U.S., while some of her family members are undocumented.

“Despite my recent adjustment of status, I still live in fear because part of my family is still undocumented,” Ramirez said. “And until the very day I received my green card, I lived in fear that my protections as a DACA recipient would be taken away from me and I wouldn’t have an opportunity to have a driver’s license and work legally in the United States.”

Assemblyman Edgar Flores spoke at the event about the regular attacks against many young immigrants who must validate themselves and constantly remind themselves that they are worthy of staying in the country, that they have done everything right except for a decision that was probably made by someone other than themselves.

“If you’ve ever been to Mexico on vacation, you probably know more about that country than some of our DACA and Dreamers who were born there,” Flores said. "Because the last memory they have of it is none. They were brought here as infants.”

“All they know is the U.S.,” he said. “They bleed it, they are committed to giving everything they have to it. And in return we've just got to validate them by giving them a piece of paper.”

Salma Garcia, communications and digital associate for Make the Road Nevada, said that as a current DACA recipient who is pregnant with her first child, her future is uncertain.

“It feels terrible,” she said. “I want to see my family. I want them to see me and my child. … My future is unknown. My husband and future child’s life is unknown. My career is unknown.”