Latina congresswoman's husband faces deportation in US
3 Min Read
If arrangements are not made under the Congress-installed program DACA, her husband Boris Hernandez would potentially be deported from the US.
-
Delia Ramirez and her husband, Boris. Source: deliaforcongress.com.
The immigrant husband of Latina congresswoman, Delia Ramirez, is facing deportation since he does not hold legal documents that would allow him to stay in the US.
She urged on Sunday that arrangements must be processed under the Congress-installed program “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)," or else her husband, Boris Hernandez, would potentially be deported from the US.
She stated that DACA is a “very personal issue” for her, as it covers almost 700,000 young Latinos, among them her husband, who entered the US illegally.
DACA, introduced in 2012, protects immigrants from deportation and provides them with a work permit. “We have to put an end to this,” she emphasized.
According to a report released by the US government on Friday, the number of immigrants deported in 2022 increased by 29% to 4.7 million.
US border guards reportedly detained at least 2.3 million migrants in the last year, which is more than any previous year.
The US is built on the sweat of migrants
Ramirez was born in Chicago to a Guatemalan working-class family whose mother crossed the Texas-Mexico border while pregnant and the congresswoman was born in Chicago as an American citizen.
“Maybe not always in the Congress, but most people can contribute to the well-being of this country as children of migrants,” Ramirez noted, adding that she worked closely with multiple NGOs to aid both migrants and the homeless before she became a member of parliament - the first female Latina member.
According to migrant-defender group fwd.us, more than a whopping 22 million people in the US are categorized under “mixed-status" families since at least one member in those groups does not carry legal documents to stay.
Read next: 2,000 migrants await Title 42 status on US-Mexico border in harsh cold
In a victorious day on June 18, 2018, after Trump's administration strived to end the DACA program, the US Supreme Court rejected that decision and ruled to continue the program and protect those under it.
However, the program was considered invalid in July 2022 by the Texas Federal Court.
In response, President Joe Biden announced that his administration is working to keep the program legal and exempt from any further actions against it.
The Texas-Mexico border is a transitory route for migrants traveling from Mexico to the United States, but it has repeatedly proven to be a dangerous path for those who take it.
Earlier in June, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador cautioned that the United States is struggling to manage its southern border, accusing it of "lack of control" after more than 50 immigrants got killed while being smuggled into the country.
