On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the current administration would be ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that protects from deportation 800,000 immigrant youth who were brought to this country as children. VIDES stands with DACA.
Here is a response by one of our VIDES+USA members:
This one is personal. I was volunteering in Honduras with VIDES+USA when DACA was announced in 2012. The parents, siblings, uncles, and cousins of many of my new Honduran friends had risked so much to build new lives for themselves and their families in the United States.
Over the next year, I spent numerous early Saturday mornings at Catholic Charities Diocese of Fort Worth, helping DACA applicants gather their documentation. This January, I left my first volunteer tax shift of the year to head to the Fort Worth Women’s March, to walk for the 800,000+ law abiding young people and their families who now had new reasons to fear for their futures. On my way out the door, a young man walked in, sat down with Maria Ines Orozco, and said “I’m a dreamer. What is going to happen next?”
Why do we place more value on the technicalities of the law than compassion and humanity? How are those born within our borders more “American” than those who were brought here as children and know no other home? Why is it my job vs. your job; us vs. them? Why am I entitled to live in the light, while so many must navigate the shadows?
-Ashley Mackey
She also shared United States Conference of Catholic Bishops‘s post.
“Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me.” (Mark 9:37)
VIDES+USA 