Migrants stump for Clinton, say future in U.S. at stake

Nayely Lopez, 29, prepares to knock on the door of a registered voter in Woodbridge, Virginia.
Nayely Lopez, 29, prepares to knock on the door of a registered voter in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Unable to vote in the presidential election, a group of undocumented migrants is knocking on doors in northern Virginia in support of Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates, convinced that the outcome of the election will determine whether they can secure a path to citizenship in the country they've known since childhood.

The vote-seekers are some of the 750,000 recipients of temporary legal status under the President Barack Obama administration's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. They are acutely aware that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pledged to deport the nation's 11 million illegal aliens, and that under a GOP-controlled Congress, past attempts at an immigration overhaul have failed.

"All DACA recipients should take this on as an added responsibility, to change the power structure," said Luis Angel Aguilar, 28, who received his protected status in 2013. "Our voices need to be heard."

Four years after the program was launched, many of the beneficiaries are still in a kind of limbo, unsure whether their status would be renewed under a President Trump and concerned that their family members could be deported.

The uncertainty was underscored earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a federal court injunction against an expanded version of the program and Obama's Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, which would benefit an additional 4 million people.

"The only way to resolve this is through the election," said Kim Propeack, political director of the immigration-advocacy group CASA In Action.

The Maryland-based group is behind the Virginia campaign and a similar one in central Pennsylvania. Parallel efforts are underway in Arizona and other battleground states. The Clinton campaign launched a separate effort earlier this year called "My Dream, Your Vote," in which young, undocumented migrants, many of them brought to this country as children, urged Hispanic voters in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and elsewhere to cast ballots for the Democratic nominee.

In Virginia, where Clinton is leading by double digits, according to many polls, the group has turned its focus to the suddenly close race in the 10th Congressional District, where Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock faces an aggressive challenge from Democrat LuAnn Bennett.

CASA In Action is also targeting voters in Prince William County, where more immigrants live but where Trump also has more support.

In the 10th District, which stretches west from McLean toward the West Virginia border, Comstock backed Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the state's GOP primary. She has kept her distance from Trump and, after the revelation of the nominee's 2005 remarks about women on the set of Access Hollywood, she declared that he would not get her vote.

But Trump's history of contentious remarks about women, Mexican migrants and Muslims have nonetheless weighed Comstock down among voters in the largely wealthy district. Although the incumbent initially was favored, several political analysts have recently changed the race to "toss-up" status.

"Did you know Barbara Comstock compared immigrants to FedEx packages?" Nayely Lopez, 29, asked a voter in Herndon, Va., referring to a statement Comstock made about a desire for tougher immigration laws while campaigning two years ago. "Just put a label on us so they can track us."

The voter said she hadn't heard about the statement, then took a Bennett flier.

At a home in Herndon, Pat Blizard, 78, told Lopez that she had already voted for Trump through an absentee ballot.

"I'm sorry," Blizard said, adding she was frustrated with the spread of Spanish-speakers throughout the region. "I'm originally from Spain. My father never let us speak Spanish. He said: 'You live here.'"

Lopez thanked her and moved on. "I understand people have other ideas," she said.

Jennifer Romero, 19, thought about her own relatives as she hustled through a different Herndon neighborhood. She and a younger brother received protected status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2014. Her parents, from Mexico, remain undocumented and vulnerable to deportation.

"That's the fear," said Romero. "It's like they'd take away what little we have."

A Section on 10/24/2016

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