Junior Oscar Gonzalez doesn’t remember much about life before America.

As an infant living in the streets of Mexico, he doesn’t have much to look back on. Drug cartels, violence and rampant poverty have plagued Mexico for the last century, sparking an influx of immigrants to the United States. A majority of the Gonzalez family was among the many who chose to look for a chance elsewhere. The opportunities in America shined brighter than the eyes could stand.

Gonzalez doesn’t remember much about coming here. His age kept him from remembering the journey that started the rest of his life.

“I don’t remember much. I was three years old,” Gonzalez said. “I just know that we had ran into some complications with other people in my family, so only some of us could come through.”

Upon arriving here, Gonzalez was like any normal kid. Not until a request to visit Mexico did Gonzalez truly understand the situation he lived in.

“It all came up when I told my mom I wanted to go to Mexico and everything started to come up. She told me if we went there we might not be able to come back and that’s when I started to understand it all,” Gonzalez said. “Living here, I always thought I was like everyone else.”

Growing up in the U.S., Gonzalez faced some challenges as an immigrant not being given the same opportunities as his peers. Then in 2012, President Obama announced a new opportunity for the thousands of young people like Gonzalez who had been brought here as infants and children. Called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the immigration policy was meant to help minors who were brought to the U.S. as infants and young children.  

DACA became a new option for Gonzalez to receive some of these opportunities he had previously been denied by being undocumented. The application process took a long time, and Gonzalez was finally accepted this year. Since then, he has has been able to get a work permit, but this will only last for the next two years as Congress attempts to implement something new.

“I was brought here at the age of three so being blessed, luckily this last summer to get DACA has been something that will give me new opportunities the next two years while it lasts and hopefully in the next six months something else can be brought up to fix all that,” Gonzalez said.

On Sept. 5 President Trump’s administration announced that he would end the DACA program unless congress came up with a replacement bill, shutting off the light of opportunity that burned so bright for many immigrants. This program gave undocumented people brought to the United States at a young age opportunities that documented citizens receive, such as getting a driver’s license or getting a job.

“When I was informed of that I was praying that that doesn’t happen. I was here wishing that it doesn’t happen. But seeing that news the day it did happen, it really broke me, and I know it broke many people I was close to. It broke many of my family members, and honestly I want to do all that I can these next two years that I have it to get my voice heard and even after that to still work hard to come up top and be successful,” Gonzalez said.

RESPONDING TO THE NEWS

The reaction to DACA was immediate and heartfelt for many Lawrence North students, especially for those directly affected by the decision.

While students struggled to deal with the realities that the removal of DACA brings, junior Omayralis Alomar attempted to comprehend the situation at hand. The reaction from Alomar was like many others. Shocked and concerned, Alomar became a system of support for many friends and companions now affected by the potential repeal of DACA.

“It just made me upset because then I turned around to my best friend, the person I’m always with, and she got so upset,” Alomar said.  “We hung out all afternoon that day but she was just upset. Seeing my best friend was really sad and she wasn’t the only one.  Everyone else was really upset.”

After the announcement, many Lawrence North students took part in protests to show support for their peers being affected.  Junior Jassmine Dominguez helped organize the demonstrations to show her friends that they were not going to be alone in fighting this.

“When I found out I just wanted to show my friends support because I know I have several friends who have DACA.  I have to show them support. I have to show them that we care. We can’t just put them behind, like ‘oh, that happened.’ We have to show them that we support them, that we will be there for them, that we will stand for them,” Dominguez said.

The protests grew in size each day they took place. From the first one, the day after Trump’s order, to that Friday’s walk in, the protests drew support from many cultures and students who came to understand what the program meant.

REALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

Even as DACA students move on to adult lives, the benefits of the program don’t end.

LN alum and IUPUI junior Aldo Rosales was 16 when he was accepted into the DACA program, a program that changed his life forever.

“When [Obama] first announced it, we just went out, found a lawyer and figured out the quickest way to get accepted to the program,” Rosales said. “After that I finally got a job, and it was around the time everyone else was getting jobs. I worked at a fast food restaurant with a bunch of my high school friends, so it was cool to be able to experience that.”

When the news first broke, Rosales could barely contain himself. For once, there was no more fear of being an undocumented citizen.

“I remember being super happy. I was on my way home from LN and I remember just screaming in the middle of the bus,” Rosales said.

While many people are accepted to the DACA program, for some, this application process can be very rigorous. The application process requires people to submit proof of residency, which can be especially difficult for those without citizenship status or for teenagers who don’t receive mail. On top of that, a holding period of two years and renewal fee of $495 makes it challenging for people to consistently remain a part of the program.

Gonzalez was approved for DACA this last summer giving him opportunities to receive a work permit and help to provide for his family. Since the recent announcement of DACA’s potential removal, Gonzalez decided he would utilize the time he had left as a documented to work hard in hopes of a better future.

“For some people, it took them forever to get approved. Some people just didn’t get approved at all, so it was just a really big blessing to get approved honestly because I decided to turn my life around at that moment. I knew if I’m going to work hard for things, it’s going to have to happen from now, and it’s going to have to keep going from now until whatever it is that comes in the future,” Gonzalez said.

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT

If Congress can’t develop a new bill within six months, the DACA program will end for those involved.The loss of this program could come with major changes in the country. Without this program, almost 800,000 people will lose their work permits and face being deported from the country, something immigration attorney Megan Pastrana sees as a major hardship on the nation.

“It’s just going to have a huge, huge impact on our economy. 800,000 people when 90 some percent of them are employed. To lose all of that creativity, all of their skills that they’ve gained, all of their money that they are paying into the system, we are losing a lot,” Pastrana said.

While the program has been the center of heated debate, Dominguez sees DACA as an effective, simple answer to the American economy’s burning questions.

“Many of these people pay taxes, they help the economy.  It’s important. If you do that then the economy would go down,” Dominguez said. “A lot of people, like the DACA students, are doing the jobs that most Americans wouldn’t want to do. Americans would not want to take their place. There would be more jobs but less people wanting to do it.”   

Even once the program is removed, the U.S. will not see drastic changes overnight. With over 800,000 recipients of DACA, the country does not have the capability to remove them all at once. Once the program is terminated, people will start falling out of status and immigration will start to seek out those without status. Even then, each person is given the right to request a hearing before a judge, many of which can take years to schedule with over 30,000 current pending cases in immigration court.

“We have hundreds of thousands of people here in the United States without status. Frankly, we don’t have the resources or the human power to go and pick up everybody and remove them from the United States, and a lot of people aren’t familiar with the process for doing that,” Pastrana said. “It’s not that immigration officers go and just pick up people and actually physically remove them that day. Most individuals have the right, if they have not already gone to immigration court, to have a hearing before an immigration judge.”

FACING FEARS

As many are learning to live with fear that they are undocumented, the news is nothing new for Rosales. Rosales lived roughly 16 years before the program was ever ordered by then president Barack Obama, facing the reality many are beginning to see.

“Once you come over here, you know that you can’t really strive for anything. You have to make do with what you have,” Rosales said. “All these other kids and dreamers are losing it, they’re having realizations that they are undocumented with the fear that they could be deported at any time. All those emotions, I was living in like the fourth grade.”

Apart from fearing deportation, Gonzalez fears that his family could be torn apart. Many families that came to the U.S. also had children in the U.S. making them United States citizens. For Gonzalez, his younger siblings are citizens which means that they could potentially have to stay in the country if the rest of their family is deported.

“It’s quite terrifying. My father has spoken with me about being afraid of having us at home at times because someone could just show up and be like, ‘Hey, let’s go.’  He doesn’t want to see that. My siblings are good. They are citizens, and he says the last thing he wants them to see is us getting taken out of the house in handcuffs or however it is that they take us out,” Gonzalez said.

For those who could face possible deportation, they would be traveling back to a country they have never known. Being brought to the United States as very young children, only certain recipients will vividly remember life before the U.S. but for many it is forgotten, For Rosales growing up, Indiana was and still is his home.

“I came when I was six months old, so all I know is Indiana. I know nothing about Mexico,” Rosales said. “I learned English first. Even today I might struggle talking with my family in Mexico because my Spanish isn’t as good as theirs. I grew up just like everyone else did.”

Living with uncertainty all of the time, many immigrants are hesitant to step out of the shadows and try to follow their dreams. When applying for DACA, these immigrants have chosen to take the risk to achieve their goals. Now with the potential end of this program, these people will lose everything from the lives they have made for themselves here including houses and businesses. Many have tried to fight this such as a group of Dreamers in California who filed a lawsuit against the United States claiming that it was unconstitutional for the program to be removed. This particular group of Dreamers was a group of men and women who had received degrees in law, medicine, psychology and teaching from which they built up their careers. Now without their DACA permits, the careers they have worked so hard for are in jeopardy.

“Their stories really shed light on a lot of the stories of the DACA recipients,” Pastrana said. “It just breaks your heart the amazing things that they’ve done and now they are going to lose.”

MOVING FORWARD

As Congress starts their six month window to build a law to replace the DACA program, Gonzalez feels that the government should look at the response of the public, focusing on the negative effects it has on a majority of the nation.

“This country’s built on the pursuit of happiness, everyone’s right to freedom and to achieve greatness. Taking that whole DACA thing is one of the ways that undocumented citizens had of achieving that greatness. Taking that away from us has really affected us greatly and is going to affect our way of pursuing our happiness,” Gonzalez said. “I just want them to think about all the families that are going to be separated. I want Congress and Trump to realize all that, realize what will happen to the economy. Honestly, really look into it, really learn how much we do for everybody, for the whole country, not just Hispanics, but other races too.”

Although many believe this announcement could be the end to the debates over DACA, this has sparked much talk about what Congress will do next. Dreamers have been present in this country for many years before DACA was implemented and will continue to reside here when the program ends.  Rosales believes that these debates will continue on and must in order for Congress to make decisions on potential laws that would protect immigrants to follow the American Dream.

“All this isn’t over. There’s no way we will stay this way forever. It’s a fight that’s going to keep on going until it works. It’s a fight we’ve been fighting forever but no one has noticed. Now it’s in the spotlight, there’s no way everyone wants to leave now,” Rosales said.