DACA activists take to the streets in Oakland, San Jose
OAKLAND - Bay Area faith leaders and immigrant rights activists plan to take to the streets in Oakland and San Jose Thursday evening to protest President Trump’s likely end a program that allows undocumented youth to protect themselves from deportation.
About 70 people attended the event Rev. Deborah Lee helped organize at Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza. The rally began at 6 p.m. with an opening song of "We're Gonna Keep on Moving Forward."
One woman said there's a sense of betrayal and that Trump may end the program that helped giver her a better life.
"The government made a promise to us. They said come out of the shadows, give us all your information. We'll make it right for you . I did that. I trusted the government. Now they say they might use that against me," said Concepcion Solis, a DACA recipient.
DACA was launched in 2012 under President Obama. The renewable work permits for those in the program were good for two years. If DACA ends, once those permits expire, dreamers would have to leave the U.S.
Several people at the rally said they graduated from the college and now have professional jobs and that DACA changed their lives.
"It gave me a little taste of what it is to be an American . I felt it in my heart but I was never able to it," Solis said.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said her administration is committed to doing what it can to protect DACA recipients.
"I am so horrified that our government is even considering breaking this type of promise," Schaaf said.
DACA recipients say they're grateful, yet apprehensive as they grapple with the uncertainty of their future.
"I call that psychological terrorism when young people don't know where they are in the balance, so we're standing in solidarity with them and with families waiting to hear what is the outcome," said Rev. Art Cribbs with the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity.
Meanwhile several community groups held a rally at the same time in San Jose at the SIREN offices at 1415 Koll Circle.
Those who attended the San Jose event will be phone banking, directing calls to the White House and Congressional leadership to voice their support of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. This program allows undocumented youth to protect themselves from deportation and gain access to such basics as the permission to work, a driver's license and in-state tuition for college.
Ending this program would have devastating effects for them and the families they support, the activists said in a statement.
Fox News learned Thursday that Trump will end the DACA program as it currently exists.
Organizers say on the day President Trump makes his announcement about DACA there will be a mass action at San Francisco's Federal Building at 7th and Mission.