ICYMI: Padilla Speaks With Wrongfully Deported DACA Recipient About Returning to U.S., Reuniting With Daughter

WATCH: Padilla: "I'll never stop fighting in Congress to finally provide the pathway to citizenship for Dreamers like you who contribute so much to our country."

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, met with Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and Sacramento mother who was wrongfully detained and deported. She was detained at her green card appointment in February, despite being an active DACA holder. Ms. Estrada Juarez was able to return to her home in Sacramento at the end of March, following a federal court ruling that required the Trump Administration to facilitate her return. Padilla and other lawmakers pushed for Ms. Estrada Juarez's return after meeting with her daughter, Damaris.

In their conversation, Padilla and Estrada Juarez discussed the impacts of her wrongful deportation on her and her daughter. Ms. Estrada Juarez shared that her daughter's advocacy gave her the strength to remain hopeful. She also spoke about the joy she felt when reunited with Damaris and being back in her community in Sacramento. Ms. Estrada Juarez encouraged other Dreamers to stay strong and stay together, and to speak up when they see unjust detentions and deportations like her own. In a message to the Trump Administration, she implored them to stop separating families and stop delaying renewals for DACA recipients.

Key Excerpts:

• PADILLA: You came to Sacramento when you were just a child. And you grew up there. You're raising your daughter there. You've built your life there. You've been working and paying taxes there. It's your home, really… The day that you were detained, it wasn't just on the streets, right? You were showing up at one of the required appointments, a mandatory check-in, and it seemed like before you knew it, you were put in handcuffs and put in a van and taken away. How did that feel in the moment?
  
  
• ESTRADA JUAREZ: It's stressful. Hopeless. It felt like they took my life away in a second. Just to see my daughter devastated the way she was, it was very painful.
  
  
• ESTRADA JUAREZ: You know, it feels amazing to be back home. It feels great to be able to hug my daughter again, to be able to see her in the morning going to work, getting her lunch ready, making sure she's eating - you know, like the mom duties… But on the other hand, I have my DACA renewal still pending and that is something that puts me in a position where I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep working and keep providing for my daughter.
  
  
• ESTRADA JUAREZ: My daughter, she gets really stressed from me going out on the street. She gets really stressed for me like leaving the house. If someone knocks the door, she starts panicking. She doesn't want me to open the door. She's very scared… But I'm telling her, you know, we can't live in fear. We have to trust the process.
  
  
• PADILLA: There's hundreds of thousands of DACA participants and even more Dreamers around the country who are also maybe nervous or fearful to go outside too much given everything that's going on. What words do you have for them?
  
  
• ESTRADA JUAREZ: What I can say to all our DACA recipients, you know, is that we have to stay strong and we have to stay together. If anything happens to anyone like my case, not to stay silent. Speak up, reach out, and make sure that your voice has been heard.
  
  
• PADILLA: I wanted to uplift your story not just because it's a story of strength and resolve, but because the Trump Administration… focuses so much on talking about dangerous, violent criminals. They want to deport all the dangerous, violent criminals when we've known from the very beginning that the vast majority of the people they're detaining, that they're arresting, and they're deporting do not have violent criminal convictions. There are some, and that should be the focus, the sole focus. It should be very intentional like you said, focus and target them specifically. But the vast majority of the people that are being detained and either deported or being held in detention facilities in very inhumane conditions are people like you: otherwise law-abiding, hardworking, raising families, paying taxes, trying to live the American dream, and contributing to the community, to the economy, to our country. People deserve to hear your story because that's the reality of what's happening with this Trump mass deportation agenda.

Video of Padilla's conversation with Ms. Estrada Juarez is available here.

Learn more about Maria's story here and here.

Senator Padilla is a leading voice in Congress for providing long-term undocumented immigrants with pathways to citizenship or permanent legal residence. Last month, Padilla and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Representative Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.-03) joined immigration advocates and experts from the Home is Here Campaign and Ms. Estrada Juarez to renew their urgent call for the passage of the Dream Act to provide a permanent pathway to citizenship. Senators Padilla, Durbin, Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) led 37 other Democratic Senators in demanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reduce the severe delays in processing renewal applications under the DACA program. In February, Padilla, Durbin, and Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) blasted DHS for wrongfully targeting and removing DACA recipients in a joint statement. Padilla also is the lead sponsor of the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929, which would provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to apply for lawful permanent resident status if they have lived in the U.S. continuously for at least seven years before filing an application, do not have a criminal record, and meet all other current eligibility requirements to receive a green card. Padilla previously took to the Senate floor to defend DACA recipients from DHS' baseless claims and slam the Trump Administration's push for DACA recipients to "self-deport." He emphasized that these long-term residents - who were brought to the country as children - have been working, studying, and living legally in the United States since 2012 and are vital members of American communities.

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