In many ways, Nicolle Uria is a typical 16-year-old. She’s a junior in high school, she’s thinking about applying to college, and she really wants her learner’s permit.
“I was asking my parents for a long time to go get my permit and they kept postponing it,” said Uria, “and I really didn’t understand why until they had told me that I was undocumented.” That’s how she learned her immigration status wasn’t what she thought it was. “I grew up thinking I was born here.”
Five months ago, she applied for DACA, the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative. The program grants temporary deportation relief and work authorization to some young undocumented immigrants, also known as DREAMers. Nearly 742,000 immigrants currently benefit from the program.
When Donald Trump was elected president, the future of DACA — and Uria’s future — became much more uncertain. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would reverse the program. As president-elect, he has talked about focusing on 2–3 million “criminal” immigrants first.
“Since the president-elect doesn’t necessarily know what he wants to say or says what he means, its hard to know what’s going to happen,” said Robert Remes, an immigration lawyer in Washington, D.C. “It’s hard to give advice under those circumstances.”
Uria is dealing with that uncertainty by spending time with her undocumented community, specifically with the DREAM Project, a local Virginia non-profit that provides scholarships, mentoring, and support for DREAMers and their families.
Emma Violand Sanchez founded the non-profit. Since the election, she’s received numerous calls from students and parents, alike.
“Parents couldn’t sleep, they were crying, students,” said Sanchez. “We heard from many of our teachers, they’re having problems with attendance right now…It’s like, the rug has been pulled from under their feet.”
Despite the unknowns, Sanchez and Remes are determined to fight for the DREAMers and their families.
“What is known is that under the law as it exists now and how it has existed for my whole career, even undocumented immigrants—‘aliens’ as the law likes to call them—are entitled to due process,” said Remes. “Nothing is going to happen right away.”
Uria’s mother, Giovanna, isn’t backing down either.
“We already were fighting all these years that we were here before… we just have to keep fighting and keep going on.”
Video transcript:
HARETH: If your family was undocumented, what would you do?
TRUMP: They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
If I’m elected they’re gonna be out of there day one.
Build that wall! Build that wall!
WOLF BLITZER, CNN: Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton to become president elect.
BETTY: I was just (gasps) I couldn’t believe it.
GILDA: It really left us in shock.
LIZETT: It felt like a nightmare, you know? ’Cause we didn’t really think this could actually happen.
NICOLE: I had friends that were sitting around me making jokes, saying ‘oh are you going to go back to Mexico now? And I was just laughing on the outside but on the inside I was really scared, really nervous for what’s about to happen.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: What do you do about the DACA order now?
TRUMP: The executive order gets rescinded.
And they’re here illegally, they’re gonna have to go and they’re gonna have to come in legally.
We’re gonna get rid of the bad ones, the bad ones are gonna be out of there fast. As far as everybody else, we have to go through the process.
HARETH: Should I go into hiding?
LIZETTE: Am I not going to be able to continue working where I am working?
NICOLLE: What am I going to do?
HARETH: There aren’t many answers so there is a lot of uncertainty.
ROXANA: My daughter is crying a lot. I sit with her and I say, you don’t worry. You continue your dreams and always I help you.
GIOVANNA: I am a mother. I don’t know where did I get that strength, but I did.
GILDA: It does not affect me much because I am already older and I have lived, but I was thinking of the DREAMers, of the young people. And I know what it’s like to suffer. I know what it’s like to apply for jobs without papers.
NICOLLE: I soon will be 18, and after that you’re an adult so I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with me and how I will be protected. But for right now I feel that I am okay, I’m safe
LIZETTE: I want to stay hopeful and I want to stay positive, I think that’s the best that we can do right now.
GIOVANNA: We have to wait until the president say something, you know? I think that’s, we have to be patient and keep believing in God and keep going on in everyday life.