Trump’s Immigration Policy Takes Its Toll
The story of a deported DACA recipient and the border wall
By Sophia Qureshi
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
FOR THE ROUGHLY 700,000 RECIPIENTS OF THE DEFERRED ACTION FOR CHILDHOOD ARRIVALS STATUS, this legislation provided a beam of light that brought undocumented child immigrants the chance to emerge from their shadowed existences and support themselves through legal employment and education pathways that would allow these DREAMers to realize their lifelong reveries. While the future of DREAMers seemed bright under the Obama administration, uncertainty is rising under the new Trump reign, where the status of those impacted by DACA is coming under question.
On February 17, this reality became especially present with the deportation of Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez, who may have been the first to become part of the DACA program. Bojorquez was stopped by a Border Patrol agent while on his way to a taxi station in Calexico, California. Having forgotten his wallet in a friend’s car, he was unable to provide proof of his status, shattering his reverie and leading to his immediate detainment. Hours later, Bojorquez was marched across the United States-Mexico border before any investigation was undertaken.
Bojorquez’s deportation is remarkably unprecedented considering President Donald Trump’s “soft-spot” toward those affected by the DACA, previously referring to them as “incredible kids.” However, the administration’s actions drown out Trump’s words. Analysts struggle to find an explanation for this incident as protections remain in place and Bojorquez’s DACA protections are valid until 2018 and on file with the CIA. Unsuccessfully attempting to re-enter the U.S., he has now filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The suit alleges that the government has ignored all requests for information about the reasoning behind his deportation and is in violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
Unfortunately, the American dream is now becoming a nightmare for undocumented childhood arrivals as their protections continue to be encroached upon. In February, Daniel Ramirez Medina, a DREAMer from the Seattle area, was detained by ICE due to a tattoo that was wrongly linked to gang activity. In Portland, Oregon, Emmanuel Ayala Frutos was detained and deprived of medical treatment while in the process of renewing his DACA status, which followed the arrest of Rodriguez Dominguez just days earlier.
Although this particular development in the volatile immigration canon of the Trump administration was astounding and unexpected, President Donald Trump remains firmly cemented in his plans to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. However, he must face his own obstacles first. The wall is disliked by Democrats, border-state Republicans, and other Congressional GOP leaders, but Trump insists that the project be undertaken despite incessant criticism besieging the project from all sides. The president is insisting that Congress allocate $1.4 billion for the wall, which has limited public and congressional approval.
Nevertheless, Trump remains wrapped up in his dreams of division on the border and has returned to his original source of funding for the wall: Mexico. On April 23, he made yet another attempt to rope Mexico into the project by tweeting that “Eventually [the wall will be built], but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.”
While the wall became the brunt of numerous jokes aimed at the president, his continued insistence on building the wall and securing funding could have disastrous repercussions on our nation. One such disaster was averted just last week as the government narrowly avoided a shutdown. These circumstances were brought on by the hefty budget of the wall and the inability of Congress to make a clear decision on the project. While the security and stability of our nation remains uncertain, Trump is crystal-clear that no matter what arises, the border wall will remain a top priority — even if he must go through extreme measures to secure funding for the project.
As the administration of President Donald Trump unfolds on center stage, seeds of doubt remain sowed in the minds of undocumented immigrants nationwide as their status remains in limbo. It is nearly impossible to tell where the president will go next as his continued, fruitless demands for detrimental projects become more and more outlandish. The only outcome that can be predicted with certainty is that the people of the United States will watch with bated breath as the administration lays down its wall, brick by brick.
