Ready California looks to assist undocumented for DAPA, expanded DACA
Immigrants’ rights advocates on Tuesday, May 19, launched a statewide campaign to prepare California’s immigrants communities for the executive action programs announced by President Barack Obama in November last year.
Although implementation of the new administrative relief programs – Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) – was delayed due to a preliminary injunction issued in a Texas federal court, the Ready California campaign aims to prepare undocumented immigrants for the programs once they move forward, an event campaign leaders are convinced will occur.
The statewide initiative is backed by a number of community-based, non-profit and faith-based organizations, as well as unions, foreign consulates and ethnic media.
The announcement of Ready California was made on the day the federal government was set to begin accepting applications for the new programs. Both would have allowed millions of undocumented immigrants to remain in the Untheyited States without fear of deportation and apply for a work authorization permit for three years with the possibility of renewal. However, following a lawsuit filed in December by 26 states that resulted in the injunction, both programs are currently in limbo.
“May 19 should have been a day of joy and hope for five million immigrants protected under President Obama’s executive action,” Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said in a statement.
“For months we have been preparing for the day when we could help our community apply for DAPA and DACA,” Salas said Tuesday, May 19, at a rally held outside the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration building in Downtown Los Angeles.
In California, more than 1.5 million undocumented immigrants qualify for the programs. Of those, nearly 220,000 reside in the City of Los Angeles; throughout the county, approximately 500,000 are eligible.
While applications for DAPA and expanded DACA remain unavailable to undocumented immigrants, Salas said Ready California is still looking to assist the community by helping members apply for other programs for which they may be eligible. CHIRLA, for instance, has encountered individuals who believed they were eligible for expanded DACA, who ended up qualifying for the original program that went into effect in 2012. Additionally, the initiative also seeks to help permanent lawful residents who might qualify for citizenship through naturalization.
At the rally, demonstrators held signs reading, “Stop separating families,” and “Our parents deserve DAPA!” They also chanted, “Keep our families together!,” “Go DAPA, go!,” and “Si, se puede!”
During a forum held prior to the demonstration, two immigrants who would benefit from the programs shared stories about living in fear of deportation and splitting up from their families, and how they pay taxes as US citizens do.
Salvador Huerta, who has worked in the US for 16 years mainly in the strawberry industry, said through a translator how he sees many deportations in the community. With that possibility, he said it saddens him to think of his five children, all of whom are US citizens, if he weren’t here. Without parents, it would be difficult for kids to realize their hopes and dreams, Huerta said.
Isabel Medina said she and her husband have been working a variety of jobs in the country for 17 years, from doughnut shops and restaurants to picking up trash and in factories. In all those years, she said she paid taxes.
“We’re just waiting for Republicans once again to move forward with our undocumented working [families]. They have to acknowledge we are people who contribute to this great nation. They have to know that they’re not just hurting our [families] by separating us, they’re also hurting America because we contribute [to the economy],” she said.
Since the ruling earlier this year that delayed the implementation of DAPA and extended DACA, the US Department of Justice has filed an emergency stay request with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the preliminary injunction while the case makes it way through the courts. Oral arguments for the stay were heard in April, though no decision has been announced.
For the preliminary injunction, Alvaro Huerta, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, said a hearing is scheduled to take place the week of July 6.
More information about the initiative is available online at www.ready-california.org.
(www.asianjournal.news)
(SF May 22-28, 2015 Sec. A pg.1)
