Lizbeth Mateo, Lulu Martinez and Marco Saavedra, three young undocumented immigrants and activists with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), are going to try to re-enter the United States after leaving the country for the first time since they were brought to the US as children. Mateo left the US for Oaxaca, where she is originally from, a week ago, while the other two went to Mexico on Wednesday. This Monday, they will go to the US-Mexico border and demand to be allowed to return home.
It's not Mateo's first act of civil disobedience. In 2010, she held a sit-in in the office of Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) along with three other young immigrant activists to protest the senator's turnaround on the Dream Act (McCain had sponsored the legislation in 2003, 2005 and 2007 but said he opposed it in 2010 as an influx of Tea Party candidates tilted the GOP ship further to the right). Mateo and the other three were arrested and began to face deportation procedures as a result of the protest, according to Impulso Noticias.
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"I'm making this video from Mexico. I know it's going to sound a little crazy, and to be honest, I still can't believe that I'm here. It's surreal," says Mateo in a video posted on the Facebook page of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance.
Their protest aims to call attention to what they see as the unfairness of Obama administration deportation procedures. During the first four years of the president's term in office, the number of people deported hit 1.6 million, and in 2013 they have continued at a steady clip. Those deportations were facilitated by the establishment of Secure Communities, a federal program requiring local law enforcement to share fingerprints of arrestees with federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which can then file that information in its immigration databases and eventually use it in their efforts to locate and deport unauthorized immigrants, even those arrested for crimes like traffic violations.
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According to the NIYA, all three activists, who grew up in the US after being brought to the country from Mexico, are eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented youth to live and work legally in the US for a renewable two-year period. Upon their return to the United States from Mexico on Monday, they will ask for legal admission at the border. But whether or not their request will be granted might get complicated.
According to the website of the US Customs and Immigration Service, undocumented youth who have applied for deferred action and who want to travel outside of the United States must apply for "advance parole" if they haven't seen their request granted yet. Typically, USCIS only grants advance parole to those who are going abroad for educational, employment or humanitarian purposes. For the last category, the agency's website lists "travel to obtain medical treatment, attending funeral services for a family member, or visiting an ailing relative" as examples of such purposes. But even in this instance, individuals can't apply for advance parole until deferred action is granted.
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Domenic Powell, one of the founders of the NIYA, would not give details to the AP on how or where the three activists will try to reenter the United States, citing a desire to see how Customs and Border Protection agents react when they encounter them.
Mateo, for one, does not expect to be admitted to the United States. "I came to Oaxaca knowing that the US government wouldn't allow me to go back," she says in the NIYS video.
At press time, Mateo could not be reached for comment by the Latin Times.
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