Group working to help Dreamers get paperwork done

FACE Maui offering assistance ahead of Oct. 5 deadline

Undocumented immigrant Iliana Moreno had a hard time coming up with nearly $500 to renew her federal application to remain in the United States.

The Wailuku resident and single mother of two, who has lived on Maui for more than 20 years, is living paycheck to paycheck. She earns a living doing housekeeping work for cash. Former employers, such as hotels, refuse to give her work now because her work privileges are set to expire in October.

But it's dire that Moreno and thousands of other undocumented immigrants come up with the money needed to file a renewal. President Donald Trump has put an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or the DACA, program that provides temporary work permits and shields recipients from deportation. The program, which was established by former President Barack Obama in 2012, protects upward of 800,000 children of immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents.

Under Trump's plan, people already enrolled in DACA remain covered until their permits expire. If that happens before March 5, they are eligible to renew them for another two years as long as they apply by Oct. 5. Earlier this month, Trump gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix before the statuses of the so-called "Dreamers" begin to expire.

Fortunately for Moreno, her sister found her a fund to pay the $495 renewal fee. On Friday, Moreno said that she hopes to receive the money next week, and she will then file her paperwork.

But the group Faith Action for Community Equity knows that not all undocumented residents will be so fortunate. And, that's why the grass-roots, interfaith nonprofit, which has branches on Oahu and Maui, is trying to reach out to the Dreamers to help them with the filing fees and with processing their renewal applications before the deadline.

The Rev. Tasha Kama, lead organizer of FACE Maui, said she's quite sure Dreamers know if they need to renew their papers, because their lives depend on it.

"But I don't think they know how they are going to come up with the money to pay," Kama said.

She wants to let them know "there is help out there."

Kama said she didn't know offhand how many people may be part of DACA in Maui County but, according to 2014 estimates by the Pew Research Center, Hawaii has about 45,000 undocumented immigrants.

Kama pointed out that children of undocumented immigrations are being singled out "for something they had no decision on the matter. Your parents take you, you got to go."

She called them "all-American kids" who may have found out their status as they tried to apply for scholarships.

"These people are working; they're students. They have their own businesses," Kama said. "These young people only know America as their home."

Kama said these people are taxpayers as well.

FACE Maui has been reaching out to local churches to inform congregations about filing deadlines and other information.

Kama said that the organization is awaiting word on a grant to spread the word about the Oct. 5 deadline.

In the meantime, 31-year-old Lahaina resident Mayra Granados is helping make sure undocumented immigrants are aware of the issues.

Granados was 2 years old when she was brought to Maui from Mexico City.

Although her status in the country is secure for the time being after a renewal of her papers was approved in January, she remains uneasy about her long-term future.

"It does give you this sense of uncertainty. You can't plan for the future. You don't know what's going to happen," said the office manager.

Granados' older brother is among immigrants who are seeking renewal of their legal status, she said. She helped him fill out forms and send them right away.

Forms need to be in Texas by Oct. 5.

Hurricane Harvey battered the Lone Star State last month, and mail delivery has been impacted.

Granados isn't affected by the Oct. 5 deadline, but she is ill at ease with her fate in the hands of members of Congress. Nevertheless, she said she's happy the issue is out in the open and being debated.

A graduate of Lahainaluna High School, Granados said that she hopes her younger sister, now a college student, will have the same opportunities she has had in the U.S., and that the sisters can remain in the country.

But "if it doesn't have a positive outcome, you are looking forward to going back to the place, maybe your birthplace, but you know nothing about," she said.

Moreno is fearful as well.

As a 28-year-old single parent, she will have to take her 8-year-old son and her 1-year-old daughter to Mexico if she is deported. She tried to move back to Mexico in 2010, but returning to her roots didn't agree with her. The culture and language are totally different than what she's grown accustomed to in the United States, she said.

Moreno said there are more opportunities for her children in the U.S., especially for her daughter. There's still a persistent view in Mexico that a woman's role is to be a wife and a mother.

She recalled stories in which children get abducted from the streets, or poor children are enlisted to sell gum on the streets to pay for their school uniforms.

Moreno said she hasn't told her son about her status because she didn't want him to worry.

During the 2016 presidential election, her son came home and said that his classmates told him that Trump was going to deport all the Mexicans. But Moreno said she assured her son that he was safe because he was born here.

"Just the election rocked his world," she said.

Moreno, a Maui High School graduate, has encountered some critics who've blamed the parents of immigrants for putting their children in this citizenship status limbo.

She said that her parents tried to attain citizenship and pursued legal avenues. They even hired an attorney to help. But Moreno suspects that they didn't get the right advice and believed their efforts had been fruitless, she said. Instead, they chose to remain undocumented and not to attract attention to themselves.

Moreno said her father initially came to Hawaii from Tijuana to work at Kmart when it first opened. The big-box store had hired a man to hire workers legally. But that man hired another person to do the recruiting. That led to her father being brought to Maui and put up with others at Harbor Lights in Kahului. Soon after her mother came over, her grandmother brought her and her younger sister to Maui.

Overall, Moreno said that the back and forth of the government debate about immigration has been giving her nightmares.

"I call it the monster. They turn out to be the immigration monster. It's all related to this. It's all the stress relating to what's going to happen," she said.

For more information about Dreamer renewals or FACE Maui, call Kama at 879-4844 or 463-2963. People may also call Gilberto Sanchez, FACE Maui's immigration chairman, at 357-8001.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.