DACA Protesters Take To Streets Amid White House Reversal Effort

PHOENIX, AZ — As the Trump Administration presses forward with rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, which protects about 800,000 immigrants who were brought into the country unlawfully as children, supporters have taken to the streets across the country to defend the program.

On Monday, protesters in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, South Carolina and elsewhere held signs that read, "No person has the right to rain on your dreams" and "You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one." Protesters were also arrested at a sit-in Tuesday morning near Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, according to officials and reports.

Hundreds of teachers and students demonstrated outside Metro State University in Denver to protest.
Protesters held posters Tuesday saying, "Accept my resistance and expect my resistance" and "No borders, no nations, no racists, no deportations."

Watch: Protests Erupt Outside The White House After Trump Ends DACA

More protests were expected Tuesday as young immigrants prepare for the worst and fight to keep the Obama-era protections. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday morning that DACA will be rescinded.

Starting on Wednesday, the administration will not take any new applications for DACA. Registration in the program lasts for two years. Anyone whose registration expires in the next six months will have until Oct. 5 to apply for another two-year extension. But after DACA recipients' registrations expire outside the six-month window, they will not be able to reapply. This means, in part, that the hundreds of thousands of people who received work permits under the program will be forced to leave their jobs once their registrations expire. (For more information on the DACA protests and other national stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Some young immigrants worry they will have to work under the table in lower-wage jobs, while others hope to persevere or even start their own businesses.

Watch: The Trump Administration Just Announced The End Of DACA

Korina Iribe said she and her partner have been discussing what they need to do to protect their 2-year-old son in the event that they are no longer shielded from deportation or cannot work. Both were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

"Our son is U.S.-born, and ultimately for us, we want the best for him. But we also don't wanna go back to living in the shadows," said Iribe, from the Phoenix area.

Iribe and her partner are planning on giving one of her son's grandparents power of attorney in case they are deported without notice. She is considering getting her son dual citizenship so he could join them in Mexico if needed.

Iribe said her family also will need to figure out how to pay for a mortgage on a home they bought two months ago.

"For us, it's more like how will we protect ourselves from deportation, and two, how will we make it work for our family, financially," Iribe said.

Abril Gallardo, 27, has used the work permit she got through DACA to get a job as a communications director for a Phoenix advocacy group. That's allowed her to pay for college so far, although cutting off in her ability to work legally threatens that.

If she can't work anymore, Gallardo plans on helping with her mom's catering business and hopes to start their own family restaurant one day.

"The most important thing is that we're safe together, and we're there for each other," Gallardo said.

Evelin Salgado, 23, who came from Mexico 13 years ago, is worried about losing her job, her home and her driver's license if DACA is canceled.

"It's like my life is crumbling on top of me," said Salgado, who graduated from Murray State University in Kentucky last year and in is her second year as a high school Spanish teacher just outside Nashville, Tennessee.

"My hopes. My dreams. My aspirations. Everything my parents and I have worked so hard for. We don't know what's going to happen," she said.

Salgado and her parents rent a home and she helps them financially. They may be forced to move to a smaller home or an apartment "because if I lose my job, of course, we can't pay for it."

Her father works in landscaping and her mother washes dishes at a restaurant. That's what got Salgado through college.

"Millions of people live in the United States undocumented. My parents, they work. So unless they put us in deportation procedures, we would have to go back in the shadows," Salgado said. "By that I mean working on low-paying jobs, driving with no drivers' license."

By ASTRID GALVAN, Associated Press

John Raby contributed from Charleston, West Virginia.

Photo credit: Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press