Latin American Staten Island ready to accept illegal immigrants

Photo: twitter / @ ICEgov

In Staten Island, where Donald Trump received 57% votes, some residents prepare their homes to accommodate migrants to protect them from deportation.

Residents such as Ruth, a local educator who chose not to give a last name, became part of a group that offered asylum to families threatened with deportation.

“It’s immoral to take children away from their parents,” Root said. “People came here illegally because they had no other way to do it legally.”

The effort to create an “underground railroad” for illegal immigrants was started by Cesar Vargas, the first unregistered lawyer in New York who can live and work in the United States under the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. This program has been in effect in the country since 2012 and allows illegal immigrants who came to the United States before the age of 16 to obtain a work permit. Those who have a high school diploma and no criminal record can count on protection from deportation. Currently, about 750 thousand people have benefited from the DACA program.

It all started at local community meetings, where Vargas began to notice the need for safe havens for some immigrant families.

The Department of Homeland Security exempted DACA recipients from checks by immigration officers, but Vargas feels threatened with deportation and is also afraid for his family members who do not have documents.

“My DACA could be taken away. I have to protect my mother, who is 73 years old and undocumented,” Vargas said.

Such actions helped Saul Dominguez, an undocumented immigrant who fled Arizona to New York in 2010, after the state passed the controversial immigration bill SB 1070.

Dominguez is preparing for the worst. “I already have some documents ready, and I have saved up money, which my family now has in Mexico,” he said.

Dominguez works as a laborer at a local construction company in Staten Island, which mainly builds swimming pools. He lived in the USA for 22 years and has no violent criminal history. The man confesses that he was returned several times during an illegal border crossing after he went to his family’s home.

"I'm not afraid. “I’m not a murderer or a robber,” he said. “I came here to work.”

Ruth, a Staten Island resident, said that if someone like Dominguez and his family were in danger of being deported, she would take them to her and provide them with a safe haven from the migration authorities.

Michael Decilis lives in a 2-room apartment with his wife and 4-year-old son. Decilis is a former New York Police Department officer who is also ready to open his home. Although he grew up on Staten Island, he now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

“I, along with many other Americans, am against this administration’s treatment of immigrants,” he said. “This goes against the history of this people.”

Recall that the US Department of Justice plans to Send 50 judges to migrant centers to promptly issue a court decision on deportation or asylum.

Ранее immigration officers arrest a woman seeking protection from family violence in the courtroomwhere she was supposed to issue a protective order from a former partner.

From the beginning of February immigration police raided several states in the USAduring which 680 arrested illegal immigrants.

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