AURORA | About 60 people gathered at the GEO Group immigration detention center Monday, pushing for a federal law that would grant legal status to young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
The group included six young people who are marching from California to Washington, D.C. in support of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors. The bill, dubbed the DREAM Act, has been shot down several times in recent years, but advocates for illegal immigrants remain hopeful it will pass.
Opponents of the plan have said it will only make entering the country illegally more attractive and spur continued illegal immigration.
Jose Sandoval, one of the walkers from California, said he hopes the walk encourages other young people who were brought into country illegally as young people to push for citizenship.
“I want other people who are young like me to come out of the shadows,” he said.
Jonatan Martinez, one of the walkers, said he spent time in a detention facility like GEO after being picked up for an immigration violation in Georgia, where he was attending college.
“I know what it’s like to be in one of these places,” he told the crowd.
The facility holds several people facing deportation for immigration violations.
The organizers of Monday’s rally protest against the facility and what they say is a heavy-handed crackdown on immigrants who, aside from their immigration status, are otherwise law-abiding.
Martinez said he had hoped to join the military after graduating high school, but enrolled in college instead when he learned he couldn’t join the military because he was in the country illegally.
Javier Hernandez, one of the walkers from California, said the recent federal pilot program to stop legal action against some young illegal immigrants had not done enough.
The program, known as “prosecuturial discretion” is being tried in Denver and Baltimore and allows some illegal immigrants to stay in the country, but doesn’t grant them legal status.
“Prosecutorial discretion is not working,” he said. “That’s why we need more action.”
At least one man at Monday’s rally knows about the program firsthand.
Gerardo Noriega, 23, was facing deportation last year after being arrested for driving without a license in 2010.
But in December 2011, federal prosecutors opted not to pursue his case, citing prosecutorial discretion.
At Monday’s rally Noriega said he isn’t facing deportation, but he also hasn’t been granted a work permit.
Noriega came to the United States from Mexico on a visa as a 9-year-old. The visa expired two years later and although the rest of his family now has legal status, Noriega still does not.
The Smoky Hill High School graduate said without a work permit, he isn’t sure what the future holds for him.
“I’m kind of in limbo,” he said.
Reach reporter Brandon Johansson at 720-449-9040 or bjohansson@aurorasentinel.com
Go back to Mexico and get in line legally. Amnesty is not the answer. Reagan allowed amnesty to 8 million 25 years ago, did it solve the problem? No it did not, it created more demands and bad behavior. We are a nation of laws.
Noriega ‘overstayed’ his visa, on sure on advice from a group that promotes illegal immigration to America. He broke the law. Now pay for that illegal behavior, if not, what will he have learned? He would have learned you can cheat and win, not in America please.
Я смеюсь, как глупые американцы. Я считаю, что акт враждебно по отношению к несовершеннолетним таким вопросам, как иммиграция, которая вам нравится все не представляется возможным. Если вы не знаете людей, которые живут в крупных Banana Republic Banana Republic в истории своей же на самом деле.
this country is made up of illegal immigrant the only true citazens native indeans like myself, So get off of your high hourses an do the right thing give them the right to stay
you stayed without permission didnt you?
They didn’t just stay without permission, they wiped out more than 100,000,000 aboriginal Americans, just in the regions of the United States, too.