Speaker 1: It's May seventeen, twenty ten, a sweltering, dry Monday in Arizona.
Speaker 1: By noon, the temperature climbed to ninety degrees, pretty typical
Speaker 1: weather for the Sonoran Desert. But this is not your
Speaker 1: typical day, because something incredible is about to go down.
Speaker 1: In Senator John mckein's office in Tucson, five brown college
Speaker 1: kids dressed in blue caps and gowns enter his office
Speaker 1: and stage an old school sit in. It's a bold move.
Speaker 1: They are essentially trespassing and at risk of getting arrested
Speaker 1: or even worse. The pressure is so much that one
Speaker 1: of the protesters bows out, leaving just four Braula Caraca,
Speaker 1: Lisbeth Matteo, Mohammed mo Abdullahi, and Jahira Ca. They sit
Speaker 1: smiling with legs crossed, urging Senator McCain to support the
Speaker 1: Dream Act, a bill that would, among other things, create
Speaker 1: a pathway to legalization for undocumented immigrants. You see, McCain
Speaker 1: had previously supported the bill, but at this point it's
Speaker 1: considering a run for president, and pulled his support to
Speaker 1: try and please the Republican's conservative base. The protesters refuse
Speaker 1: to leave until McCain agrees to flip flop back to
Speaker 1: supporting the bill, even when security comes, even when the
Speaker 1: police come, they hold.
Speaker 2: Their position.
Speaker 1: Until finally the four college kids are arrested. It's a
Speaker 1: powerful move and a brave one because three of the
Speaker 1: four protesters risking their safety for the rights of immigrants
Speaker 1: are themselves undocumented. Lizbeth, mo Yahida, all of whom are undocumented,
Speaker 1: knew that they could be arrested. They knew they might
Speaker 1: get deported. They planned for it. They knew how it
Speaker 1: would look to deport peaceful students demanding rights. And it's
Speaker 1: not that they weren't scared, but it was their way
Speaker 1: of telling the world to care about their struggle. They
Speaker 1: wanted people to pay attention to the Dream Act and
Speaker 1: how it could change their lives. It was a tool
Speaker 1: to create pressure on elected officials to please God, do something,
Speaker 1: do something about this country's broken immigration system.
Speaker 2: I'm Patti Rodriguez and I'm Mary Glendo.
Speaker 1: This is Out of the Shadows, a podcast America's Tangled
Speaker 1: History of immigration. Last season, we tackled Ronald Reagan's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six Amnesty Act. This season, we're tracing the origins
Speaker 1: of DACA, or Deferred Action for childhood arrivals. A contentious
Speaker 1: executive order to protect undocumented young people from being.
Speaker 3: Deported issued by former President Obama in twenty twelve. DACA
Speaker 3: was meant to be a temporary stop gap on a
Speaker 3: broken immigration system. It was like putting a bucket under
Speaker 3: a leaky roof, But with multiple Supreme Court challenges and
Speaker 3: looming presidential elections, the roof feels like it can collapse
Speaker 3: at any moment, impacting the US economy, American culture as
Speaker 3: we know it. Meanwhile, the future of millions of lives
Speaker 3: hang in the balance. Welcome to out of the shadows, Dreamers.
Speaker 4: Eric.
Speaker 2: Do you remember March in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was covering it from my community college newspaper,
Speaker 3: the Talent Marks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was there too, covering it for the radio
Speaker 1: morning show. And for those who don't remember, the protests
Speaker 1: began in response to a proposed legislation that would raise
Speaker 1: penalties for legal immigration and classify undocumented immigrants and anyone
Speaker 1: who helped them enter into the US as felons.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that back then, to be honest,
Speaker 3: all I knew was it was a day without a
Speaker 3: Mexican and we were all going to go to downtown La.
Speaker 2: Oh, and we all came together.
Speaker 3: That's right, over one.
Speaker 1: Million people just in downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: It was just in LA So it was all over
Speaker 3: the country. They were doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is written in history as the largest
Speaker 1: protest ever because these are the parents of the Dreamers
Speaker 1: who were fighting for their humanity. I believe these marchas
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six is what inspired the Dreamers
Speaker 1: to see the power in numbers, to see that they
Speaker 1: were not alone in this fight, and maybe in a
Speaker 1: way gave them the courage to come out of the
Speaker 1: shadows themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was definitely a moment for sure. The history
Speaker 3: of immigrants organizing during that time was like a Gordian knot,
Speaker 3: or like pulling out wired headphones from your pocket. It's tangled.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: The Dreamer movement is so closely tied to the Dream
Speaker 3: Act and education. The Six Marches were like an incubator
Speaker 3: for the movement. Sure, people marched to end a different bill,
Speaker 3: but it was a coalition of immigrants of all kinds,
Speaker 3: a united front of millions.
Speaker 5: The Dreamers had already they had already been coalescing as
Speaker 5: a community.
Speaker 3: That's the one and only Mightysa, a Mexican American Pulitzer
Speaker 3: Prize winning journalist and host of the hit PRX radio
Speaker 3: show Latino USA.
Speaker 5: Why because what would happen is that you know, they
Speaker 5: would end up in college if they were able to.
Speaker 5: And then their identification, whether they were from Africa or
Speaker 5: Korea or Venezuela or Argentina. One of their primary identifiers
Speaker 5: was to be an undocumented student. And they formed those
Speaker 5: allegiances right across ethnicities, race, cultural backgrounds, national identities. And
Speaker 5: this to me is kind of extraordinary about the Dreamer movement.
Speaker 5: It is, yes, in many ways a Latino Latina LATINX
Speaker 5: movement in Tendido, but it is also encompassing of all immigrants,
Speaker 5: right and refugees, and there's no race upon which that
Speaker 5: is only dedicated to them, right, So I think that
Speaker 5: was really really powerful.
Speaker 3: Laganan Mancha was like someone sent out a bat signal
Speaker 3: to the Latin diaspora across the US.
Speaker 5: And I think that again, the marches in like Chicago, Dallas, LA.
Speaker 5: The marches that stood out half a million people in Chicago,
Speaker 5: half a million people in Dallas, Dyosmil. I think it
Speaker 5: was close to a million in LA.
Speaker 2: In New York. It was smaller, but what it was
Speaker 2: in New York was Dodo.
Speaker 3: Mundo laganon Mancha helped kill a bill that would have
Speaker 3: made undocumented people in the US felons. And it showed
Speaker 3: the power of community and of organizing a little fire
Speaker 3: that many people hope would change immigration policies in a
Speaker 3: big way, maybe even lead to the dreamac passing. But
Speaker 3: as we say, history isn't that simple.
Speaker 5: What I'm really haunted and obsessed by is the capacity
Speaker 5: of this country, and it's in humanity towards people who
Speaker 5: were simply were not born in this country. And then
Speaker 5: you have a reality in terms of the immigrant experience,
Speaker 5: which is that you are not only less than human,
Speaker 5: but you are also labeled illegal.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, on the anniversary of the
Speaker 1: Six Marches, hundreds of thousands of immigrants still shut up
Speaker 1: to protest on May Day in California. The protest ended
Speaker 1: with police attacking peaceful protesters, many of whom were families
Speaker 1: with children. So just imagine for a minute, you're pleading
Speaker 1: for humanity, peacefully holding your innocent child's hand, and the
Speaker 1: police respond with swinging batons and a rapid fire of
Speaker 1: rubber bullets. The protesters were pleading for a solution on
Speaker 1: the issue of immigration and demanding the end of workplace
Speaker 1: raids and deportations. By two thousand and eight, the protesting
Speaker 1: flames started to dim a bit, but thousand still marched
Speaker 1: in May, especially in Milwaukee. Messages plastered on signs demanded
Speaker 1: the end of raids. The US supported close to three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people in seven, close to a fifty percent increase.
Speaker 1: The protestant marches also flirted up anti immigrant groups such
Speaker 1: as Numbers USA, whose membership numbers went from one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand to six hundred thousand. But the marches had an impact,
Speaker 1: as Antonio vi Ja Ragosa, Eli's may at the time
Speaker 1: asked DHS to end the workplace rates, citing in a
Speaker 1: study that fifty percent of those deported we're working in
Speaker 1: local industries and could create further harm on the economy.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and nine, the protesters took it to
Speaker 1: a more sophisticated level by coordinating civil disobedience through Internet
Speaker 1: communities and text messages. Again, I want to emphasize that
Speaker 1: the undocumented students let the fight for immigration reform for themselves,
Speaker 1: and they were bold Mahmie.
Speaker 3: Eric Guadata was one of those organizers.
Speaker 4: We called ourselves Dreamers because you were trying to pass
Speaker 4: lesislation that was called the Dream Act.
Speaker 6: So it made it easier and it made it ring
Speaker 6: in people's minds, right, especially when you're talking of politicians
Speaker 6: who are always getting yelled at for so many different
Speaker 6: things that oh shit, I remember those who Those are
Speaker 6: the dreamers.
Speaker 7: Who came to my office and got arrested. Those are
Speaker 7: the dreamers who came here when they were like babies
Speaker 7: and they assimilated to society, but they're still undocumented. So
Speaker 7: it was it was a double edged sword because for
Speaker 7: so many years in the beginning of the movement, we
Speaker 7: were pushing the dream bag right, like this is the legislation,
Speaker 7: this is the bill that is going to fix everything,
Speaker 7: all the way up until twenty ten. So up after
Speaker 7: twenty ten, like that just became part of the lexicon.
Speaker 3: He went, is the dreamer movement grow in real time
Speaker 3: and the organizing became more and more frequent.
Speaker 4: So in terms of the way the movement grew, in
Speaker 4: terms of like doing non violent actions and figure out
Speaker 4: different ways to get people's attention or just to put
Speaker 4: people's day up.
Speaker 7: We escalated over the years in terms of cool, We're
Speaker 7: gonna have a teaching cool, We're gonna have a community
Speaker 7: media cool, We're gonna have an open house.
Speaker 4: Each time the event gets bigger and bigger and bigger
Speaker 4: and more and more.
Speaker 8: Personal, to the point that when documented students started about
Speaker 8: doing civil disobedience and getting arrested, and that's when like
Speaker 8: should just stop off in terms of like.
Speaker 4: Now we are thinking about what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: At one point the organizers started worrying that they were
Speaker 3: being watched by the cheese muscles at the FBI.
Speaker 4: Were you going to be monitored? And in many ways
Speaker 4: I think we were.
Speaker 9: Especially just because of the nature of things when, especially
Speaker 9: when you get arrested in front of the federal headquarters
Speaker 9: in the West Side, when you start fucking with like
Speaker 9: the FBI and at the time too President Obama and
Speaker 9: the presidential office, you're gonna have eyes on you no
Speaker 9: matter what.
Speaker 4: So whether anything happened from that, I don't know.
Speaker 8: But there were instances right where we could just like
Speaker 8: point to each other and be.
Speaker 10: Like, your phone's not working right, Yeah, no, my phone
Speaker 10: sounds weird, Like we're not getting any reception, you know,
Speaker 10: weird phone calls things like that, like trying to trying
Speaker 10: to figure out if we've seen that person before a meeting.
Speaker 4: Before and who are they?
Speaker 8: And as many you know, news organizations have proved over
Speaker 8: these last couple of years, especially with the Black Lives
Speaker 8: Matter movement, that there is a modern day hotel pro happening,
Speaker 8: and you know, activist spaces are being metiltrated and they
Speaker 8: are being you know, turned into against folks to criminalize them.
Speaker 8: So it wasn't the same as it is today, but
Speaker 8: for sure it was a concern to be monitored.
Speaker 1: But even still, what all these fears and pressures, Maria,
Speaker 1: I know, hoos success. They put themselves in harm's way
Speaker 1: to fight. When I saw the activists do that ridiculously
Speaker 1: bold move of going over and taking over brock Obama's
Speaker 1: campaign offices, whoa I mean, talk about putting your body
Speaker 1: on the line, talk about giving it your all selflessness,
Speaker 1: of sacrifice for the greater good, and of a brilliant
Speaker 1: political move.
Speaker 5: Frankly was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: A year later, in twenty ten, the Dream Act was
Speaker 1: up for a vote again. That same year, dreamers showed
Speaker 1: up at the offices of politicians to demand its passage.
Speaker 1: We'll hear from them after the break.
Speaker 3: Twenty ten was a huge year for the Dreamer movement.
Speaker 3: The Dream Act was up for a vote again. It's
Speaker 3: still guaranteed a path to legalization for immigrant children who
Speaker 3: got here before the age of sixteen. This was going
Speaker 3: to be the year it passed, and the Dreamers did
Speaker 3: everything in their power to ensure that. Lizabeth Matteo, one
Speaker 3: of the undocumented protesters from the top of the show,
Speaker 3: had been organizing for years advocate for the bill, and
Speaker 3: her involvement grew when she found her community.
Speaker 11: I was at that first meeting when United was being
Speaker 11: was formed as an organization. That's where I met Muhammad
Speaker 11: and other undocumented against people.
Speaker 3: She's referring to. Mohammed mo Abdullahi, another one of the
Speaker 3: protesters who donned a cap and gown with Lizabeth.
Speaker 12: I got involved in immigration stuff just sort of from
Speaker 12: like a selfish place, which is I needed something that
Speaker 12: would help myself as someone who was undocumented lived here
Speaker 12: since I was three years old.
Speaker 3: Moe's an undocumented immigrant from Iran. He and his family
Speaker 3: have been living in an arbor since he was three.
Speaker 3: His fear of deportation was even more pronounced because he
Speaker 3: feared he'd face a worse fate in Iran as a
Speaker 3: gay man.
Speaker 12: I think the first time, my mom just told me
Speaker 12: that there's something called the Dream Act, but not to
Speaker 12: google it because the police would find us. And so
Speaker 12: the first thing I did is I googled it and
Speaker 12: found out that there was a community of folks just
Speaker 12: like myself that were online trying to advocate for the
Speaker 12: Dream Act.
Speaker 3: Yet despite that anxiety, he still felt compelled to get involved.
Speaker 3: It was scarier to be left in limbo. Mo became
Speaker 3: an activist after he applied to enroll at Eastern Michigan
Speaker 3: University and wasn't accepted because of his status, even though
Speaker 3: he had saved up enough money that led him to
Speaker 3: become a Dreamer, although they weren't calling it that yet.
Speaker 12: So when I found out about dream BacT, it was
Speaker 12: two thousand and seven, maybe late two thousand and six, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 12: it was close to the end of two thousand and
Speaker 12: six is when I first found out about it and
Speaker 12: sort of got involved, just online, sort of a community
Speaker 12: talking to other undocumented folks, not too much activism and
Speaker 12: the Dreamer name. We were initially calling it Dreamy with
Speaker 12: an Ie and then point it turned into Dreamer. One
Speaker 12: of the first projects that we undertook was we sort
Speaker 12: of recognized the importance of telling our stories and so
Speaker 12: we just reached out to other Dreamers. Hey, this can
Speaker 12: be anonymous, you can use whatever nickname you want. It's
Speaker 12: important for people to know that we exist and that
Speaker 12: were their friends, coworkers, neighbors, and so that was sort
Speaker 12: of like the first project that we took up in
Speaker 12: the Shadows.
Speaker 1: After Mo and Lizbeth met, they strategized on how to
Speaker 1: get people to care about the bill. But there was
Speaker 1: one moment that inspired that McCain action. One of the
Speaker 1: United with Dream members, Matias Ramos, was detaining the Minnesota Airport.
Speaker 1: It became a crisis and eventually he was released from
Speaker 1: removal proceedings to different action. Moe wanted to recreate that
Speaker 1: anxiety and blis size it to the world, which brings
Speaker 1: us back to McCain's office.
Speaker 12: I remember calling Lizabeth, I think one day, saying like, hey,
Speaker 12: let's get ourselves arrested and let's like recreate this moment
Speaker 12: of fear with everyone where they think, like, oh my god,
Speaker 12: these folks are going to get deported, what can we do?
Speaker 12: And so being in control of the action, our plan
Speaker 12: was we were going to tell everyone ignore us, call
Speaker 12: for the passage of the Dream Act. And so yeah,
Speaker 12: we essentially put together a plan of let's find people
Speaker 12: that are regionally diverse from different parts of the country
Speaker 12: that are leaders, and the five or six of us,
Speaker 12: let's get arrested and essentially put ourselves into deportation. Proceeds
Speaker 12: to recreate sort of that like Matias simulation.
Speaker 1: The protesters were intentional with their messaging. They knew what
Speaker 1: kind of message the cap and gowns would send. It
Speaker 1: was calculated symbolism that wisdom.
Speaker 11: Now you're resting students, you know, Now you're arresting people
Speaker 11: that just want to study, that want to go to college.
Speaker 11: I mean, if you present this sort of image to
Speaker 11: you who present this story, as long as there's media attention,
Speaker 11: as long as people are connected and organizing, because that's
Speaker 11: the point that we wanted to make. If you've become involved,
Speaker 11: if you organize, you're going to be more safe as
Speaker 11: opposed to if you item it yourself.
Speaker 1: There's power in numbers and hiding and playing sight.
Speaker 11: Because if I come knocking on your door, no one
Speaker 11: is going to know, but we'll use that symbolism because
Speaker 11: that is something that I think grabs people's attentions to
Speaker 11: just saying, okay, this is where we start to start
Speaker 11: with the young people. Look with this government is doing.
Speaker 11: Look what this country is doing, tearing families apart. Now,
Speaker 11: obviously we're adults, we're not we're not children anymore. But
Speaker 11: using that they happen down was just symbols.
Speaker 2: But they were still arrested.
Speaker 11: Some of us were put in remotle proceedings. But the
Speaker 11: reason we did that was because we knew that. And
Speaker 11: then documenting young people, the community that we have formed
Speaker 11: was ready to fight and could actually stop our own vacation.
Speaker 3: Now it was up to Congress. The Dream Act made
Speaker 3: it through the House, but it was blocked by a
Speaker 3: Republican dominated Senate, and once again the bill died flailing
Speaker 3: on the Senate floor. The final vote was fifty five
Speaker 3: to forty one and needed five more votes to clear
Speaker 3: the sixty vote threshold. Five bruh no moments that created
Speaker 3: even more pressure for immigration reform. Shit was about to
Speaker 3: get very real for Elizabeth and mow. They knew they
Speaker 3: had to keep the pressure up.
Speaker 12: When the Dream Act vote failed. We were all very
Speaker 12: sort of like content. It was like we knew this
Speaker 12: was going to happen. I know there was people in
Speaker 12: our group that were obviously disheartened and sad, but I
Speaker 12: think our take on it was like this is never
Speaker 12: going to pass, and we need to focus on something
Speaker 12: that's essentially what became the base of NIA for empowerment,
Speaker 12: education and escalation, and not so much being focused on
Speaker 12: legislation per se, but rather creating sort of the community
Speaker 12: that can surpass anything, including getting legislation.
Speaker 3: The McCain sit in was like a soft launch for
Speaker 3: their own group.
Speaker 11: A month later, we formed the movie Aliance. We had
Speaker 11: already then a student or actually several sit ins. We're
Speaker 11: undocumented young people essentially forced the government to arrest us.
Speaker 11: In my course, I mean like weak challenge. So as
Speaker 11: a result of that, we continued to do more and more.
Speaker 11: I think we will call it radical. I don't necessarily
Speaker 11: life dot work. We were just kind of dramatizing what
Speaker 11: was already happening in our community. Young people were being
Speaker 11: detained and deported, parents were being detained and reported in families,
Speaker 11: the entire family was being destroyed. So we wanted to
Speaker 11: use the privilege that we had as a documently young people.
Speaker 11: This is before back off first and know that we
Speaker 11: were a more sort of protected class. If, if you will,
Speaker 11: if we were actually willing to organize and share our.
Speaker 3: Stories, it was time for Obama to act out of
Speaker 3: the shadows will be back after the break. After losing
Speaker 3: Congressional support following Obamacare, Obama conceded on the issue of deportation.
Speaker 3: The administration couldn't get the Dream Act through in twenty ten,
Speaker 3: and Congress members started to press for some relief of Dreamers.
Speaker 3: In twenty eleven, John Morden, the Director of ICE, issued
Speaker 3: a memo announcing a highlight program expanding prosecutorial discretion. Remember
Speaker 3: that from the first episode. That's the secret policy that
Speaker 3: John Lennon's lawyer, Leon Wilds found. While prosecutorial discretion is
Speaker 3: legalese for deferred action anyway, scholars referred to it as
Speaker 3: the Morton Memo, but it wasn't just one memorandum, but
Speaker 3: a series of them. By twenty twelve, the reviews from
Speaker 3: the pilot program in Denver and Baltimore revealed that most
Speaker 3: undocumented cases were low priority and focus could be shifted
Speaker 3: to more serious offenders or criminals.
Speaker 1: Obama's team discussed with immigrant organizations and advocacy groups on
Speaker 1: how to best implement different action on a larger scale.
Speaker 1: Critics called it backdoor amnesty. Obama couldn't get the dreamac
Speaker 1: through Congress because Republicans controlled Congress, but with so many
Speaker 1: immigrants in limbo, the pressure cooker was swhistling aggressively.
Speaker 5: What this country witnessed with the movement of the Dreamers
Speaker 5: really is extraordinary. It is not, in any way, shape
Speaker 5: or form given the credit that it deserves in terms
Speaker 5: of being an essential part of the greater civil rights
Speaker 5: movement of the United States of America.
Speaker 7: You know, folks are getting arrested. Folks who are pushing
Speaker 7: people that they're in their offices, were getting arrested in
Speaker 7: campaign offices, were doing everything they could to pressure Obama
Speaker 7: behind the scenes and in front of the cameras and
Speaker 7: the part of public opinion to push them to be
Speaker 7: like you've been reporting all these people, you know, try
Speaker 7: to say, save your reputation, try to do something right.
Speaker 4: With that power you have.
Speaker 13: I am very disappointed Congress wasn't able to pass the
Speaker 13: Dream Act so we can stop punishing kids for the
Speaker 13: actions of their parents and allow them to serve in
Speaker 13: the military or earn an education and contribute their talents
Speaker 13: to the country where they grew up.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Out of the Shadows, Obama
Speaker 1: announces DACA, But who really made it happen? We explore
Speaker 1: that and more next time Out of the Shadows. Dreamers
Speaker 1: is a Semelo production in partnership with Iheartsmichael Duda podcast Network.
Speaker 1: It's created, posted, and executive produced by me, Patti Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: and Eric Galindo. This show is written by Sessa Hernandez
Speaker 1: an executive produced by Jiselle Vancis. Our supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Arlene Santana. It's produced and edited by Brianna Flores. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Claudia Marti GRENA sound is so mixing
Speaker 1: and mastering by Jessica Cranechitch and a special thanks to
Speaker 1: all our Dreamers. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and
Speaker 1: share it. For more Michael Duda podcasts, listen to the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.