By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Twenty-year-old Jessica Rodriguez has known no other home except the United States. Her mother brought her here when she was only 6 months old.
Now this Fort Hays State University student fears being deported to what she sees as a foreign country because of a fight in Washington over the DACA program.
“I honestly have no idea what I would do,” Rodriguez said of a possible deportation. “I don’t have a plan. I know no other home. I have made my life here, and I have no idea what I would do if they send me back.”
Rodriguez, who grew up in Liberal, is one of more than 690,000 foreign-born residents who have been allowed to live, work and attend school under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. To be eligible, you had to be younger than 16 when you were brought to the United States and had to be younger than 30 when the program was enacted in 2012. Those in the program have been dubbed “Dreamers.”
President Barack Obama created the program, but U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in September the program would be rescinded. Anyone in the program can remain in the U.S., but no new applications are being processed.
President Donald Trump has indicated Congress could move to renew the program, but no such action has been taken. If the current deferments are allowed to expire, deportations could begin in March.
Several parties asked a judge in California on Wednesday to issue an injunction that would stop any deportations that might happen beginning in March. More than 100 tech companies — including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Uber and Lyft — have signed on to the brief.
Rodriguez said she is in limbo. She is studying business at FHSU, but she does not know if she will even be able to finish her degree. She has a job, pays income taxes, as do all DACA participants, and volunteers in the community. She said she just wants to make the place she knows as home better.
She knows she was born in Mexico, but not specifically where. Rodriguez’s mother is in the country illegally and has no documentation, and Jessica constantly worries about her mom’s deportation. She said she doesn’t remember when her mother told her she was not a legal citizen. She just remembers always knowing that somehow she was different. When she was in high school, she did not know if she would be able to apply for a driver’s license or go to college.
“It was scary not knowing what the future held,” she said, “not knowing if the all the work I had put in was going to be taken away.”
Rodriguez founded the FHSU organization Dreamers United for Success. The group has 15 members, not all of whom are Dreamers. She said the FHSU community has been very supportive as she has tried to find the right resources to get through school.
She explained her emotions when she first heard the news Trump planned to end DACA.
“It was very emotional for all DACA recipients on campus,” she said. “I kept getting texts from people on campus or other DACA people asking me if I was OK. I broke down crying. I eventually came to the mindset that it is out of our control and our hands. I hope to be active as many ways as I can, to call congressmen. I want them to see they cannot do this — to shut our world down …”