This is all because of movement building,
of organizing, of the courage of millions
of people, I mean, DACA recipients and even
some of our family members, who have come
out and said, “We’re undocumented and
unafraid.”
We took the step to come out of the shadows,
you know, in 2009, 2010, and some people even
before that, and it’s been worth it.
It paid off.
I was feeling really proud in the morning,
and also understanding that we’re a bigger community.
Our family members, our community members
are also struggling.
But, as Luis said, it is a step in the right
direction, and it’s something that we have to celebrate.
And then we have to keep fighting for more.
Can you respond to Trump’s tweet and then
what Vice President Biden said, the former
vice president, who is running for president
against Trump, of course? Trump said this
is a “shotgun blast in the face,” and
he asked if the Supreme Court likes him anymore.
And Biden talked about what he would do on
his first day in office.
Your response to both, Erika?
I mean, on the Trump side, you know, I think
he — it didn’t work out for him.
What he wanted to do was to use DACA recipients
as a bargaining chip
to try to get his anti-immigrant agenda enacted.
And we saw this since the very beginning.
In 2017, when he took the program away, the
first thing he said, you know,
“I have heart for DREAMers" — I mean, I
still remember the phrase that he used —
because he thought that, you know, by taking away
the program and then taking it back to Congress
and saying, you know, “If you want to support
and you want to help DACA recipients, then
here’s everything that I want to do with
asylum.
This is everything that I want to do to cut
immigration
and get people who I don’t want out of the country.”
And so, you know, it didn’t work out for
him.
And, you know, again, we won.
We won against him in court, which is really incredible.
And, you know, on Biden, I understand that
there is a need right now to talk about legislation
in Congress, and we want Congress to act.
But it is important, because we all saw what
happened with Obama in —
when he was running in 2008, that he was talking
about doing immigration reform the first day
in office, and he didn’t do it.
And he deported 3 million people or more.
And so, what we want to hear also from Biden
is what is he going to do to undo everything
that the Obama administration and the Trump
administration have done with the deportation machine
and that he can, in day one, do so
much with executive power.
And so, we’re hoping that not only is he
talking about that and he’s talking about policy,
but also that he actually does it,
if he’s elected as president.
