Dreamers, 'deferred'

With deadline looming, DACA students strive for a normal life at WRHS

Express photo by Roland Lane.

This story was originally published in the Idaho Mountain Express on Feb. 12, 2018.

Olivia remembers her mother’s shoes.

The way they sat for years in the back of a closet, sheltered like a relic, worn but never worn. She’d see them on occasion, and wonder why her mother kept them, safe in the dark.

The August before Olivia started high school, her mother took them out, and explained. How they’d traveled over years, across miles, to get there. How almost two decades earlier, they’d brought her across the border from Mexico into California, and then on to Idaho. And how, at 2 years old, Olivia followed, carried over by family friends to rejoin her parents on the other side.

She’d never heard that story. But on the eve of her freshman year at Wood River High School, her mother made it clear. Olivia was undocumented.

“It didn’t really come up,” said Olivia, whose name, along with the names of the other students in this article, has been changed to protect her privacy. “Sometimes I’d hear my parents talk about it, but I never knew what they meant. Whenever there was an election, they’d say, ‘Maybe this one will give you your papers.’”

Eventually, one did.

In 2012, then-President Barack Obama signed Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an executive order granting undocumented immigrants who came into the country as minors a renewable, two-year shield from deportation. Two years later, Olivia applied for the status, for people now called “Dreamers.”

DACA isn’t citizenship, nor does it offer a path to citizenship. But over the life of the program, it has offered protection and peace of mind to some 800,000 recipients nationwide, including 3,427 in Idaho, according to fiscal 2017 numbers from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the division of the Department of Homeland Security that processes applications. Over a million more would qualify, if they chose to apply, according to national studies.

To be eligible, applicants must have entered the country before their 16th birthday, and have been under the age of 31 on June 15, 2012. They must have a clean criminal record, without a felony or significant misdemeanor. They must be at least 15 years old, and be in school, have a high school diploma or GED, or have been honorably discharged from the military. And, they must have lived continuously in the U.S. since June 15, 2007.

Protections vary by state. In Idaho, DACA recipients receive close to the minimum Obama’s order requires. Some states allow DACA recipients to participate in government health care—including the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, and tax credits under the Affordable Care Act—but Idaho doesn’t. They can’t get food stamps, or federal student loans. And, while DACA allows recipients to travel freely within the U.S., it offers no guarantee they’ll be allowed back if they travel abroad.

But, they can get a Social Security number and a work permit, which can help them get a driver’s license, a job, and qualify for in-state tuition at public universities.

According to Olivia, the effects run deeper.

“DACA has made me feel more included,” she said.

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Dreamer tells her story

That’s how she felt on Aug. 30, as her mother pulled the shoes back out of the closet. Over the past four years, it’d become a ritual: On the anniversary of her first steps into America, she would find the shoes exactly where she’d left them, and repeat the story.

With each telling, Olivia grew up. She took AP classes, the SAT. She honed her skills on violin. She decided that she wanted to go to college, wanted to teach music, and had gone on visits to schools where she hoped to someday reach towards that goal. Slowly, over years, she’d begun in tightening, tangible ways to walk the path her parents had envisioned for her as they walked theirs, across deserts and boundaries to Blaine County, Idaho. As Olivia began her senior year at Wood River High School, that future was right there—her parents’ dreams in waking life, close enough to touch.

Five days later, news out of D.C. stripped it away.

On Tuesday, Sept. 5, the Justice Department announced that it would rescind DACA, fulfilling a long-standing campaign promise of President Donald Trump.

“Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time. “Simply put, if we are to further our goal of strengthening the Constitutional order and the rule of law in America, the Department of Justice cannot defend this overreach.”

Sessions gave Congress six months to work out a deal before the federal government would stop accepting and renewing DACA applications. With less than two weeks to the March 5 deadline, it hasn’t.

The decision came on the heels of a June letter from 10 states, threatening to sue if the administration didn’t act by Sept. 5. The letter was signed by the attorneys general of each, including Lawrence Wasden, attorney general of Idaho. There was one more, too: Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, the only executive to sign.

“We all have the same dreams, the same goals.”

“Oscar, ”WRHS Senior

“This is part of my office’s ongoing efforts to encourage the government to respect the separation of powers,” Wasden said in a statement. “My signature on this letter is not about targeting immigrant families. Rather, it is consistent with my objection to legislative executive orders, as well as encouragement to Congress to fulfill its constitutional responsibility and address these pressing issues.”

That morning, Olivia’s mother barged into her room. They needed to talk. Olivia was shocked. She was saddened, she was scared. Like hundreds of thousands of young immigrants across the county, she didn’t know what would happen next. So, she did what she knew how to do. She picked up her guitar, and started to write a song.

Tuesday, our future waits

New rules, being placed

Mama said don’t worry,

He won’t make us go.

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Students worry about status

“That’s it, we’re done,” Alex thought when word came down that Tuesday. At the start of his senior year, he began to count his time in weeks and months, not the years he’d planned.

“I thought I was going to be sent back,” he said. “I was really, really scared. My parents told me, ‘Don’t mention this again. Don’t tell anyone you’re a DACA student, because the wrong people might hear.’”

Alex didn’t know himself until he was 12 years old. By then, he’d already spent most of his life in the valley.

He was 4 when his parents left home for America. His younger brother was born on U.S. soil a year later—he’s a citizen, the only one in his family.

For years, Alex’s parents never told him his status. “They didn’t want it to affect me,” he said. “I’d ask, ‘Why can’t we see Grandma and Grandpa?’ They’d make up some excuse, but they knew that if we left, we might not come back.”

After Obama signed DACA, Alex’s father came home with a lawyer. “It’s time to apply,” the man told him. That’s when Alex learned the secret of his status.

“I try to keep it really private,” he said. “Very few people know that I’m a DACA student, just because of the fear my family has of going back. And for me, of leaving my education. I don’t want to lose the opportunity that I have here.”

It can be chilling. Last winter, when rumors spread that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, or ICE, had staked out the valley, he didn’t leave the house. His parents shuttered him in.

“They didn’t want me driving,” he remembered. “They didn’t want me getting a ticket, or getting questioned by police.”

They’ve grown more lenient since, “but there’s still that underlying fear.”

On Sept. 5, Oscar felt it, too.

“My family was very scared,” said the Wood River senior. “And I was, too. I didn’t go out of the house for a couple weeks, just in fear.”

Oscar came to the U.S. when he was 4. He’s never been back to Mexico; his parents are afraid to leave the country. His younger brothers can come and go—they’re citizens, Idaho-born.

“My immediate reaction was to renew my current DACA,” he said. “We did it as soon as possible, and just hoped for the best.”

Last year, 427,316 people did the same nationwide. Over 80,000 more are still awaiting approval, according to the most recent USCIS data.

The process puts applicants in a vulnerable position, which is one reason why the national participation rate ticks just over 50 percent, according to estimates from the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute.

“You basically need to make your deportation case for the government, and then send it it right to them,” said Kate Evans, who heads the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Idaho. “You say, ‘Here’s where I live, here’s who I am, here are all my bills, my employers, and here’s why I’m deportable—now please don’t deport me.’

“It’s an immense amount of information to hand over on a very limited promise.”

Then, there’s where the data goes. USCIS, which processes applications, is a division of the Department of Homeland Security. So is ICE, the law enforcement agency tasked with deporting undocumented immigrants.

“You’re sending your information to one part of the building, while the other part is conducting really aggressive enforcement,” Evans said.

Yet for thousands it’s worth it, and every two years they pay $495 to update their files.

“DACA gave my family hope that something good will come out of this,” Oscar said. “Even though right now, it can be difficult to see.”

“My family’s prepared,” he added. “If one of us were to be sent back, I think we’d all go. We couldn’t leave anyone behind.”

Alex’s family has discussed it, too. If he’s is deported, one of his parents would go back with him. The other would stay with his brother, who’s a citizen.

“We’ve planned for the worst,” he said.

“We’re ready to leave.”

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Assessing goals

These are the bedtime stories Michel Sewell tells her daughter.

Olivia, and her song.

Oscar, who grew up watching his friends on the soccer field, because he couldn’t afford the shoes he needed to play along.

Alex’s week locked in his home, waiting for word of ICE to thaw.

And Sewell—who runs Wood River’s Gifted and Talented Education program, as well as “GRIT,” which targets first-generation college students—tells her daughter about where they are going.

Once he finishes his eighth and final AP exam, Alex plans to study engineering. Oscar wants to head east for college. He has a friend working in finance in Manhattan—he’d like to give that a try.

“My parents told me, ‘Don’t mention this again. Don’t tell anyone you’re a DACA student, because the wrong people might hear.’”

“Alex, ”WRHS Senior

There are challenges for a Dreamer trying to attend college. They aren’t eligible for federal student loans. And, while some scholarships are available for DACA recipients, they’re often treated as international students while applying for admission and financial aid.

Alex’s younger brother won’t face the same barriers. Neither will Oscar’s.

If Sewell finds out about a student’s status, it’s usually during the college process. As policy, the school doesn’t ask.

“Oscar lives in a trailer, with a lot of chaos,” she said. “He works so hard, yet his parents don’t speak English—I’ve never met them. I’ve never seen them come to the school.

“These kids, they know their parents love them, but their parents don’t have the experience jumping through these hoops. They’re navigating these incredibly complicated situations by themselves.”

In her experience, immigrant parents are less likely to take advantage of the resources available at the school. She’s reached out to Alex’s parents over the course of years, but never heard back.

Their children, though, place a higher value on education than most high-schoolers she works with, Sewell said.

“Education is really important to my family,” Alex said.

His mother never finished middle school. His father earned a two-year degree before emigrating.

“He doesn’t want me working the same job that he does now. He doesn’t want me to live that way.”

Oscar, too, feels the weight of his parents’ lives pushing him towards a diploma.

“Neither of my parents made it to high school—I think they barely finished elementary school,” he said. “My dad is always telling me how important it is that I continue my education. He doesn’t want me living through the struggles that he lived through in his life.”

Academically, none of these three are typical—neither of DACA recipients, nor of any high school student, born anywhere in the United States. Next year, Oscar hopes to move from his parents’ trailer to one of the 16 elite colleges to which he’s applied. Olivia walks the halls of Wood River with a violin in one hand, and an AP Government book in the other. (When DACA came up during current events last semester, she stayed quiet.)

In other ways, though, they’re products of the Wood River Valley—of its schools, as well as its people. They’re kids: And, like many kids, they are where they were raised.

“They’re our friends, our classmates, our neighbors,” Sewell said. “They want to be in the homecoming parade, go to football games—just be teenagers. But at the same time, they’re carrying this weight.”

“We all have the same dreams, the same goals,” Oscar said. “We all want a good education. We just want to prosper, to live a normal life, like anyone. In the end, we all want the same things.”

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Putting life into song

On the morning of Sept. 6, Olivia walked into Sewell’s second-floor classroom. It was early, empty.

“I wrote a song,” she said. “Do you want to hear it?”

Sewell had never heard Olivia sing. The verses alternated, English to Spanish and back again—the words of her own passage, from fear, to defiance, to hope, without taking a single step.

Standing there, Sewell began to cry. And Olivia sang her song.

As you try to tear us down,

We deserve these rights,

And this is our home now,

We are not backing down.

We are dreamers.