DREAMers Criticize Tactics Of DREAM 34, Claim They've Gone Too Far

By admin October 14, 2013 15:27

First there were the DREAM 9. Now there were the DREAM 34.

They are two groups of immigrants who in July, and last month, respectively, approached authorities at the Texas-Mexico border to protest U.S. immigration policies and ended up adding a new dimension to the fight for more flexible laws for the undocumented.

And just as with the first group, the DREAM 9, so named because there were nine people who surrendered to U.S. authorities at the border and requested political asylum, the second group is generating a mixed reaction from immigration advocates.

Many praise the 34, who marched across the bridge connecting Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Laredo, Texas on Sept. 30, knowing they did not have the legal status to enter the country. Others, including U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat whose district includes the entry point the DREAM 34 crossed, said they are undermining efforts to improve the immigration system.

The immigrants – all of whom were Mexican, except for one from Peru – hoped to reunite with their families and draw attention to others like themselves who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, but who were not present last year when the U.S. tweaked its immigration policy offering them provisional legal status to remain.

All members of the first group, which was held in a detention center for about three weeks, were released pending a decision on their political asylum requests. Most of the second group remain in detention while they try to establish a credible fear of persecution if they return to their homelands.

“All 30 of these DREAMers initially came to the United States before the age of 16, they all grew up here in the states and consider America to be their home,” said Mohammad Abdollahi, a founder National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), the organization that coordinated the first and second crossings, in a widely-circulated email about the protest. “Different situations forced some of them to leave, while others were deported; all of them hope to be allowed to come home so they can take part in the American Dream.”

A twitter hashtag, #bringthemhome, and several websites have been set up in support of the two groups. They say they are heroes because of the huge risks taken to bring an end to deportations and call attention to the need for immigration reform.

Cesar Vargas, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who came when he was 5 years old and is with the national group DREAM (DRM) Action, said that the DREAM 34, like the DREAM 9, simply deviated from the status quo way to fight for immigration reform.

Vargas, who is 30 and lives in New York, said that critics in the immigration reform advocacy group simply are unaccustomed to the way the two groups, and younger undocumented immigrants in general, have chosen to fight for the same things.

“We DREAMers have always pushed the envelope — since we first started coming out in public and identifying ourselves as undocumented immigrants,” said Vargas, a graduate of the City University of New York School of Law. “The [older, traditional] advocates said to us ‘Don’t do it, you could hurt yourselves.’”

“Most advocates focus on legislative and executive efforts to fight for immigration reform,” Vargas said. “DREAMer advocacy focuses on another approach, that’s unsettling to other advocates because they’re very constrained to the limitations they’re used to.”

Human rights attorney, and supporter of the DREAM 34, Bryan Johnson, said that the immigrants simply are taking the fight for all immigrants up a notch, and that they should be commended.

“The DREAM 34 is not about immigration reform,” he said. “Rather, it is a direct effort to advocate for the rights of immigrants, particularly those of DREAMers, who have been repeatedly praised by the very establishment that is now currently opposed to their return to the U.S.”

“DREAM 34 are fighting the system that destroys millions of families through deportations,” Johnson added, “causing indescribable tragedies on a daily basis. They’re cutting through the convenient veil of reform to show the truth.”