Belen Sisa, ASU DACA Recipient, Arrested In DC Demonstration

"If you are reading this, I have been arrested and am in jail for standing up to Congress and the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., demanding that they pass a Clean #DreamActNow before the end of this year," Arizona State University student Belen Sisa wrote on Facebook Thursday.

Sisa was one of more than one dozen students arrested during a demonstration in the Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday. The thousands of high school and college students had traveled from as far away as Washington and Arizona in an effort to keep politicians focused on the struggle of undocumented efforts to stay in the country.

Sisa, whose parents moved with her to the United States from Argentina when she was 6 years old and overstayed their visa, is one of around 700,000 people who received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was signed by President Obama.

She is now among those same 700,000 people facing the possibility of deportation since President Trump announced he would end DACA.

"I am willing to put my livelihood and ability to stay in this country at risk, because as a person with DACA it was crucial for me to speak out for justice for all undocumented people," she said.

"Because I am tired of being used as your political pawn for a white supremacist agenda, and I demand to be seen for my humanity not just what I have to offer you.

"I am doing this because we need change in our immigration system and we will no longer be ignored. We are not victims, we are warriors."

Sisa first made news two years ago when, after graduating from high school, she wrote an op-ed for the Arizona Republic imploring the state's Board of Regents to let her pay in state tuition.

Dreamers cannot receive financial aid from the state or federal government.

She wrote of how, on graduation day, she felt "a pit in my stomach" instead of joy and hope for the future.

"I felt my education had come to an end. I had done everything right, I had received good grades, I participated in extracurricular activities, but because of my legal status and the inability to accept scholarships, my dreams of higher education seemed to be drifting farther and farther away. I was stuck in a limbo with nowhere to turn."

"My birthplace," she wrote, "shouldn't be allowed to dictate my future.

"There are thousands of stories like mine, many first-generation college students, with their own dreams, with our own passions to give back to the state we call home, and with a 100 percent desire to have our full dignity."

Sisa first went to community college, where she was allowed to pay in-state tuition. Then, in 2015, a judge ruled that DACA recipients were in the country legally and must be allowed to pay in-state tuition.

She continued to balance school with working and being an activist for DACA recipients.

In March, she made deadlines around the world when she posted a picture of herself holding her 1040 tax return, along with the caption "MYTH BUSTER."

"I, an undocumented immigrant, just filed my taxes and PAID $300 to the state of Arizona," she wrote. "I cannot receive financial aid from the state or federal government for school, I cannot benefit from unemployment, a reduced healthcare plan, or a retirement fund. I think I'm a pretty good citizen."

She noted there are millions of undocumented immigrants paying taxes every year despite the fact that they get nothing in return.

In 2010, the conservative Heritage Foundation estimated that undocumented immigrants pay $7 billion into the Social Security Trust Fund each year.

The 2014, an official with the Social Security Administration raised that annual amount to about $13 billion.

"Wanna tell me again how I should be deported, contribute nothing and only leech off this country while the 1% wealthiest people in this country steal from you everyday?" she wrote at the time.

"How about you show me yours Donald Trump?"

That last line drew hateful messages on her social media accounts. Some of the kindest ones merely told her that immigration authorities had been notified.

But Sisa kept up her efforts, which led to traveling Tuesday for the demonstration at the Senate office building. Hours after being arrested, Sisa was released and said she was "still absorbing all the feelings I felt. I felt empowered, I felt tears.

"Courage is not about doing things without fear, courage is having fear and doing it anyway and I couldn’t have done it without the love, bravery and support of all those with me at the action."

Facebook photo courtesy Belen Sisa.