[su_carousel source=”media: 35252,35253,35254,35255,35256,35257,35258,35259,35260,35261,35262″ limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” target=”blank” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″]<\/p>\n
Amid reports that President Donald Trump would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as soon as Sept. 1 an \u201cemergency vigil\u201d was held in Oakland on Aug. 31 to support undocumented people.<\/span><\/p>\n President Trump’s possible ending of the Obama administration\u2019s policy to allow children whose parents brought them into the United States without documentation to live, study, and work in the country sent waves of fear and hopelessness through the DACA recipient community.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard someone say \u2018my light is dim right now,\u2019 and it really is,\u201d said one DACA recipient to a crowd of 100 supporters. <\/span><\/p>\n Religious leaders lead the vigil in prayer for the roughly 15 DACA recipients present, and for the hundreds of thousands across the U.S. The ministers and rabbis, community organizers, and undocumented residents all had a chance to speak.<\/span><\/p>\n Yania E., a 27-year-old nursing student and DACA recipient, attended the vigil in search of comfort and to support her DACA-recipient fianc\u00e9. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am really in need of support right now,\u201d she said. \u201cI could use the community holding me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Yania talked about how DACA \u201creally changed my life. I can dream of being a nurse now. I couldn’t do that before because even if I had completed the school, there was no way for me to get me license.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Yania said that DACA allowed for her to go back to school and could work \u201cwithout having to lie about who I am all the time, part of my identity all the time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Gerardo Gomez, a 22-year-old political science major at San Francisco State University and DACA recipient\u2014who is a fellow through the SF Office of Civic Engagement and Immigration Affairs with Pangea Legal Services\u2014spoke about the need of the community to recognize the DACA recipients as individuals. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are more than just immigrants,\u201d said Gomez. \u201cIt’s more than just our identities; we are human beings and we have many complicated layers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The San Francisco resident said that he identifies as a \u201cqueer, gay man\u201d and has been HIV-positive for the past three years. He says that if DACA is abolished and he is not able to work, he could not afford rent and would lose his health insurance, rendering him unable to pay for expensive HIV medications.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cImmigration affects us in so many different ways that we don’t talk about,\u201d he said, choking back tears. \u201cOur mental health, our physical health, how it affects our loved ones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs, executive director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, raised his hand above each undocumented individual after they spoke and lead the group of supporters in chants of, \u201cYou are our light.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Community organizations also came to show support. <\/span><\/p>\n Wei Lee, the program coordinator for ASPIRE, the first pan-Asian undocumented youth group that supports immigrant rights, talked about his reasons for being at the vigil. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am here today to stand [with] and support my fellow undocumented immigrants, to protect DACA,\u201d he said, \u201cto assure our communities that no matter what happens with DACA, we’re still going to be here, we’re still going to move forward, together, to protect all immigrants regardless of their status and want to really assure all these people who might be impacted by Trump’s decision on DACA.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Still, Yania said that if DACA was revoked by the Trump administration, she would go back to living without documentation. But there is a new risk in doing so. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cExcept now, my information is out there; my identity is out there,\u201d said Yania. \u201cBefore I could hide the fact that I was undocumented, so I don’t know what would happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [su_carousel source=”media: 35252,35253,35254,35255,35256,35257,35258,35259,35260,35261,35262″ limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” target=”blank” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″] Amid reports that President Donald Trump would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as soon as Sept. 1 an \u201cemergency vigil\u201d was held in Oakland on Aug. 31 to support undocumented people. President Trump’s possible ending of the Obama administration\u2019s policy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":35259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[3843,5577,3853],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-35251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-daca-en","tag-donald-trump-en","tag-oakland-en","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n