Denver DACA School Walkout Draws 2,500

DENVER, CO - Christian Solano-Cordova said he remembered his mother hiding his light-up sneakers as she carried him and his sister past a border checkpoint from Mexico into the United States. Solano-Cordova went on to graduate from high school in Denver and to be elected 2015 student body president of Metropolitan State University of Denver. He helped organize the Sept. 5 DACA School Walkout drawing 2,500 to Auraria campus’s Tivoli quadrangle.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump would be rescinding former President Barak Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Children Arrivals (DACA) program. The DACA program registered undocumented young adults who were brought to the U.S. as children with the Dept. of Homeland Security as long as they graduated from high school or joined the armed services. DACA recipients are eligible for a social security number and renewable permission to work. Revoking DACA could affect up to 800,000 people now living and working in the U.S.

In Denver, students and teachers from public and charter high schools boarded buses or walked to the campus with signs and cell phones held high. The rally was organized by Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition and Padres & Jóvenes Unidos (Parents and Youth Together).

“I thought my mother was giving up, but she didn’t give up and she wasn’t giving up,” Solano-Cordova. “The real dreamers are our parents who worked so hard to bring us here.”

Most speakers gave credit to their parents who brought them to the US in search of better opportunities. Padres & Jovenes organizer Monica Acosta said she experienced deportation first hand when her mother was deported.

“I hate the narrative, I hate that our parents are made to feel bad for bringing us here,” Acosta said. “Our parents brought us here because they love us, right?”

Almost every hand was raised when Acosta asked who in the crowd had a family member or friend who had been deported.

An unidentified mother, draped with a superhero cape, spoke to the students.

“We gave up our dreams because of you, please don’t give up your dreams,” she said. “Fight with love, get your education and listen to your teachers,” she said. “We were cleaning, we were working construction that’s why we are here. I’m sorry how you guys feel today, because I can feel your spirit.”

Colorado has more than 17,250 DACA recipients, of whom more than 15,000 are employed and paying income taxes, according to the Center for American Progress. Colorado could stand to lose $857 million if those DACA workers were removed from the country, a report said. Ending DACA could result in a loss of $460 billion from the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next decade, the group said.

Organizers urged protesters to contact Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) and Cong. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora). Coffman introduced a bill in January that would give DACA recipients three years of protection. “It gives Congress three years to come up with a solution,” Coffman said last week.