Dream 30

Dream 30

On September 30th a group of thirty-four Dreamers, with the support of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), convened in Laredo asking to be let back into the U.S. so that we could be reunited with our families. Dream 9, another group of undocumented youths, had succeeded in returning home through a previous engagement in Nogales. As for Dream 30, we were a varied group of men, women, and a few minors accompanied by their parents. We were determined to return to our hometowns, where our families were waiting for us. Many of us were in a situation where we had to go back to our countries of birth because of our undocumented status, which did not permit us to continue our pursuit of higher education. Furthermore, we were also punished by unjust immigration laws that prohibited undocumented parents from visiting their relatives in Mexico. This meant that some of us had to go back to Mexico so that we could attend funeral services for family members who had just passed away or care for ill relatives, without the reassurance of being able to return to the U.S.

Upon crossing into Laredo, the point of entry, we were detained by Immigration. We turned ourselves into Immigration and were determined to go back to our homes in different parts of the U.S. After eleven hours of waiting, we were processed and transferred to a detention center in El Paso. When we asked Immigration officials as to why we were being relocated from Laredo to El Paso, they told us that the Laredo detention center was not under the best of condtions, and that the one in El Paso was significantly better. Immigration did not want us at the Laredo detention center, where we would be able to see the living conditions and where the immigrants already there would tell us their perspectives about living in this type of environment. Additionally, they also did not want us to help the other migrants organize or assist them with their cases.

On October 1st we were processed in the El Paso Facility. Men and women were separated and then placed in different barracks, or pods. Our women’s group was isolated from the rest of the other detainees, but we were able to have very limited interaction with the women in our neighboring pod. We ended up having an entire pod to ourselves, a barrack which had the capacity to accommodate up to fifty women, yet would only be used to house ten of us. While in the El Paso facility, we had the first-hand sensation of experiencing a situation that was all too familiar to our migrant families, who had tried emigrating to the U.S., were caught, and deported.

It was physically and emotionally draining living in the detention facility. We would wake up at 5:30 AM to get ready for breakfast, at 11:00 am we had lunch, and finally dinner at 4:00 pm. During the day, there was a procedure called “count time” where everyone in the facility was accounted for in their pods. This process was to make sure that every detainee was in the location that they were supposed to be in. During count time, we were not allowed to talk to each other and we were forced to remain in our beds. We were allowed to watch television for two hours, one hour in Spanish and one hour in English. We also had an hour for recreational activities, during which we would be able to go outside and get some sun. I was able to keep in touch with my family since we had access to telephones. However, in order to have access to phone services, we had to put money in an account. This meant that if you did not have any money, you would have no way of communicating with your relatives and friends.

In the detention center it was mandatory that we weara blue uniformand there was even a camera on the ceiling of each pod that kept track of our every move. We were in a prison. I began writing letters to my family and friends. I enjoyed and treasured speaking to them through the phone, as it was the only way I could feel some sort of escape from the detention center. Visits from people we knew also gave us a huge sense of relief. I was also fortunate to receive letters and mail, which made a tremendous difference to my emotional state. It was human contact from the outside world, with people that were free to do as they pleased.

During this time, NIYA held rallies in our support. In our hometowns, our families petitioned and rallied for our release. On October 30th, after three weeks of detention, eleven of us were released, while Rocío Hernández would be the first to be deported. Her deportation turned out to be a miserable, hurtful, and powerless experience for us. She was taken from our pod around three in the morning along with three of our other friends. They were told that they were going to be checked out by medical personnel. She was then separated from the rest and deported. She was flown from El Paso to Mexico City. Rocío received early deportation due to the fact that Immigration officials did not want her to make phone calls and let others know what was happening.

That first afternoon was our first taste of freedom. We were back in our civilian clothes and the rules imposed inside the deportation center were no longer applicable to us. It felt incredibly remarkable to be on the streets again, to not be told what to do, to not have a certain time to go to bed, to be able to do whatever we wanted to do. Although we were jubilant to have been released, we still were burdened with the thought that some of us were still inside and that Rocío had been deported. After a couple of days, another five were released.

After being released we made our way to Washington D.C., where we lobbied for the rest of the Dreamers still being held in El Paso. By then we were sixteen, and all of us would go to our Congressmen and ask for their support.

In my case, I went to the office of Congressman Luis Gutierrez. At his office, I sat in peaceful protest along with two other Dreamers, Jesús Gutiérrez and Giselle Gómez-Román, in an act of civil disobedience. After speaking to his chief of staff, it was clear that stopping deportations was not a top priority for Congressman Gutiérrez, which in turn led to my arrest in his office. I was taken to a D.C. police department, was kept in a cell block for a night, and then released the following day. Congressman Gutiérrez decided to press charges for my act of civil disobedience. This proved to me, that at the end of the day, he was just like any other politician. He, like the rest of Congress, did not care to actually stop deportations.

Days later some other dreamers in El Paso were also released, while others were being deported. This represented that in President Obama’s opinion, Dreamers who had to leave were no longer important in the immigration debate. We, who had to leave for being undocumented, were left to deal with the emotional baggage of leaving our families, our friends, and our communities. We were being shunned away from a place that was our home. The Obama administration showed that Dreamers who unwillingly left the U.S. were not welcome back anymore, which is why some of us were deported. The Dream 30 along with Dream 9 gave undocumented dreamers who had left the country, a voice and visibility.

Marcela Espinoza. Member of Dream30. She lives in Chicago.

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