From Beaufort County Indivisible

On Oct. 30, Beaufort County Indivisible, working with the Association of Mexicans in North Carolina will bring together residents in Festival Park in Washington for “A Night for Dreamers: Rally to Defend DACA” to support solutions that will help recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to keep living happy and successful lives in the place they have grown up: Beaufort County.

Speakers at the event include Washington Mayor Mac Hodges, two DACA recipients, an immigration lawyer and Juvencio Rocha-Peralta, executive director of AMEXCAN, and local restaurants are donating pizzas, cookies and drinks.

In September, the Trump administration announced an end to the DACA program. To be eligible for the program, residents had to be between 16-31, could not be felons and had to be high school graduates or enrolled in school. These residents were minors at the time their parents immigrated to the United States. The program started in 2012, meaning some residents have now participated for five years. DACA participants can work legally and, in North Carolina, receive driver’s licenses.

In North Carolina, there are 27,300 people enrolled in DACA. With the program rescinded, many residents face an uncertain future. They are star athletes, business owners, veterans, taxpayers, college graduates, mothers, and prominent community members. Many immigrant families have members with different citizenship statuses, meaning that the threat of deportation could tear families apart.

Event organizers hope to see a permanent resolution to the uncertain state these young people live in. DACA is a temporary fix.

Indivisible formed at the beginning of 2017 to teach political organizing skills and to bring progressives together. Members have made hundreds of calls to politicians, visited politicians’ offices, taken prominent positions in local political parties and organized the March for Science and the Vigil for the Victims of Charlottesville and Against Hate. They recently hosted a candidate forum for the Washington municipal election.

The event will start at 5:30 p.m. There will be both English and Spanish speakers. For more information, visit Beaufort County Indivisible on Facebook.