On the recordJune 25, 2015
I would like to commemorate the third-year anniversary of the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, program. On June 15, 2015, we celebrated this successful, although not comprehensive, policy that has provided deportation relief to more than 660,000 child immigrants nationally, including 14,900 in Colorado. This life-changing program has allowed young people who were brought to the United States as children--DREAMers--to fully engage in their communities by continuing their education and having the opportunity to work. They have been able to open bank accounts, obtain credit cards, and receive driver's licenses. Deferred action is giving these young people relief and some degree of certainty to pursue opportunities that would not have been available to them otherwise. DACA has given DREAMers hope for their future. They include DREAMers like Alex Alvarado-Renteria who has lived in Carbondale, CO for the last 18 years and has known no other home outside of the United States. Alex's parents migrated from Mexico and worked as farmworkers in order to give their children an opportunity for a better life. Alex was granted DACA and has since graduated from the Metropolitan State University of Denver with a bachelor of arts in history and Chicana/o studies. He now plans to become the first in his family to earn an advanced degree by attending law school and opening up his own immigration law practice one day.…
