Save the Children of DACA

Children of the American Dream

Their parents brought them to the United States when she was in preschool and he was a toddler. Their brother was born a couple of years later. She plays basket ball and has plans to go to Pepperdine University on a scholarship. He is a baseball fanatic with plans to go to the local community college before pursuing his physical therapy license. Their parents were lawyers in Mexico. They did not want their children raised in the corruption they observed in the Mexican government. It was never their intention to be undocumented. Through a series of errors, theirs and the governments, they found themselves undocumented with no legal option but to return to Mexico and start over.

They have a successful business. Their children are in school and living in the only home they have ever known. They are members of a community with friends and family. They are members of a church. They made the difficult decision to stay. A decision that meant living in fear of being discovered, of being arrested, of being deported.

Hope

When President Obama instituted the Dream Act (DACA) the two older children signed up immediately. When the opportunity to get a drivers license presented itself they went right down and took the test. When Trump was elected they went to the Mexican Conciliate to make sure their papers were in order in case they needed to take the family to Canada.

Their story is not an isolated incident. I taught kindergarten for thirty-plus years and stories like this abound in my memory. Parents who desperately want the best for their children and get caught in a system they cannot navigate. My friends, mentioned above, are smart, educated people and the system overwhelmed them.

Despair

 Many Sunday mornings you will find a San Diego priest saying mass on the beach by the fence that separates the United States from Mexico. Separated families come to that mass. They cannot touch each other but they can pray together. Some of the people, on the other side of the fence, are deported  retired U.S. military. I pray for all the people who are being harmed by a heartless administration.