By Sofia Alessandrini
On March 14, students walked out of classes and meetings in support of undocumented immigrant rights. The event was coordinated by Community Actions Network (CAN), a student-led activism group at Dominican.
Approximately 50 people including students and faculty attended the event in the Cyber Café to demonstrate their fight for work permits for undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Students held handmade signs with phrases showing their support such as “Fight ignorance, not immigrants.”
Eddie Rivera Burgos, vice president of undocumented and immigrant alliance, spoke out in support of the eleven million undocumented people living in the United States without work permits as well as his own immigrant experience.
“My reason for being here is [because of] my mother,” he said. [It also because of] the students and those who have been here for so long.”
Rivera Burgos encouraged participants to speak with him afterwards to discuss ways to resist stereotypes about immigrant stories. He then led a series of chants in solidarity of immigrants.
Call: “Who’s got the power?”
Response: “We got the power.”
Call: “What kind of power?”
Response: “The people’s power.”
Call: “Who’s got the power?”
Response: “Stars got the power.”
Call: “What kind of power?”
Response: “Dominican’s power.”
Sophomore Grettel Gomez Reyes also spoke at the event by encouraging attendees to vote in the upcoming election. She directed attention to the Biden administration for concentrating on the immigration situation as something that could be solved by borders.
She believes that real change can come from the improving the lives of the eleven million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
“Whether I can work next year [all] depends on your guys,” Grettel said.
In 2012, former President Barack Obama enacted DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The program allows immigrants, who came to the United States as children, to gain employment authorization and be protected from deportation. Today, nearly 580,000 immigrants are DACA recipients.
At the walkout, students voiced their ailments with the conditions that immigrants, who came to the United States as adults, still face including work permits, higher education complications, and misrepresentation in politics.
President Biden has the power to grant workers permits to all undocumented immigrants and allow the eleven million to find employment and security.
Call: “Hey, hey, how can we do it?”
Response: “Rock the vote, and don’t say “Screw it!”
Call: “Hey, hey, what do you know?”
Response: “The house and senate are moving slow!”
Rivera Burgos said it is traumatic living in constant uncertainty as an immigrant.
Towards the end of the event, Gomez Reyes encouraged students to lean into what upsets them on-campus.
“You [must] be here for the next two to four years,” she said. “The happenings at Dominican have a ripple effect to the outside world.”
She then invited students to take up CAN’s resources to learn how to become educated and involved in the greater community.
salessandrini@my.dom.edu
