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SALT LAKE CITY — Venecia Salazar typically hears folks say they help immigrants — however solely those that come to the nation legally.
As one among an estimated 3.5 million undocumented immigrants illegally dropped at the U.S. as youngsters, these feedback could be extraordinarily irritating. Solely a small fraction of these 3.5 million — a bunch often known as Dreamers — are eligible for the Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals program. Though DACA does present Salazar and about 8,000 different Utahns with non permanent protections from deportation and work visas, it would not supply them a authorized standing like everlasting residency or citizenship.
“What I want folks to grasp is that there isn’t any authorized approach to do that. There are plenty of pathways to citizenship for lots of various circumstances and for lots of various sorts of individuals,” she mentioned. “DACA recipients don’t have a pathway to citizenship like all these different people. That’s the level: to create a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. We are attempting to do that legally, belief me.
“We do not need the rest than to do that legally, and we’re we’re working actually arduous to create a pathway to citizenship.”
Salazar and different Dreamers have been combating for a pathway to citizenship for years, however their plight was given a renewed highlight after a U.S. appeals courtroom dominated towards the DACA program earlier this 12 months. It was the newest blow in a decadelong authorized curler coaster for recipients, who’ve been left in limbo questioning concerning the final destiny of a program after repeated failed makes an attempt for Congress to go laws what would supply an answer.
“Courtroom case from courtroom case signifies that my life is in jeopardy on a regular basis. What that does to the psychological well being — it is really terrifying in some moments,” she mentioned. “Undocumented of us do not converse up. We do not actually know who they’re. You form of dwell within the shadows and — and I do know you have heard that earlier than, but it surely’s the reality — undergo within the shadows.”
Salazar was 6 years outdated when her mother and father moved her and her brother from their hometown of Cananea in Sonoroa, Mexico, to Phoenix. The household lived within the Grand Canyon state till 2010, when the Arizona Legislature handed the “present me yours papers” legislation, which allowed police to demand people they suspected of being undocumented to current proof of authorized immigration standing throughout routine visitors stops and to arrest them with out a warrant.
“When that invoice handed, my mother gathered our stuff and advised me to pack in the midst of the evening and we simply fled to Utah — simply in the midst of the evening,” mentioned Salazar, who was in highschool on the time. “That is how I got here to Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, on random day in July 2010.”
For Salazar, the DACA program has meant having the ability to attend faculty, get her personal condominium and set up a secure life in Salt Lake Metropolis. About two years after first enrolling within the DACA program as a senior in highschool, Salazar felt like she wanted to do extra for Dreamers’ trigger.
“I needed to do one thing else. I wanted to do one thing else. I could not simply do nothing,” Salazar mentioned, including that her advocacy work the nationwide nonprofit United We Dream has been empowering.
“I do know that there is lots of people who nonetheless really feel ashamed, even with having DACA. Having the ability to be a voice for them is empowering. It is lovely. It is enlightening and humbling and it actually offers me the braveness to maintain going to maintain transferring ahead even when we get turned down 12 months after 12 months.”
Final week, Salazar traveled to Washington for her third time since 2017 to foyer Congress for a path to citizenship. Whereas there, she rallied with about 300 others and obtained coaching on methods to safely exhibit and maintain rallies and protests. She hopes to implement that data domestically in Utah as properly. She mentioned essentially the most memorable a part of the journey was when the group realized that senators had chosen to not embody a pathway to citizenship within the omnibus invoice.
“Once they advised us that, it broke us down, but it surely additionally fired us again up to be able to do demonstrations on the road in entrance of the Capitol constructing,” she mentioned. “Once I was surrounded by different DACA recipients, particularly this time round, it is such a good looking feeling as a result of there are others like me who perceive.
“It is an empowering feeling to know I am not on this only for myself. I am not on this only for my household. I am on this for strangers I have never even met.”
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Sydnee Gonzalez is a multicultural reporter for KSL.com masking the variety of Utah’s folks and communities. Se habla español. Yow will discover Sydnee at @sydnee_gonzalez on Twitter.
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