In addition to the usual coalition of elected officials, nonprofits, community and religious leaders who fought for immigrant protections in the just-ended General Assembly session, Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s) adds an underestimated new ally.
Young people.
Many are the children of immigrants, some are documented, some not, but they have all stepped up to testify at hearings, lead letter-writing campaigns, distribute know-your-rights cards on street corners and spread the word on social media.
“It says that they understand democracy matters for all of us, that each and every one of us plays a role and get to participate,” said Martinez, the chair of the Maryland Legislative Latino Caucus. They helped with what Martinez knew going in would be a rough legislative session for immigrant rights.
While advocates were able to win protections dealing with immigration agents at places like schools, hospitals and houses of worship, and another blocking agents’ access to state databases without a warrant, they were not able to get restrictions on so-called 287(g) agreements between local police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. With minutes to go until the end of the session Monday night, House members agreed to drop the 287(g) language in a dispute with the Senate so they could preserve the rest of the package.
“While we were not able to advance a full prohibition on the 287(g) program this year, we are proud to have passed Sensitive Locations guidance and Data Privacy Protection through an amended HB1222 Maryland Values Act,” he said. “These victories, though partial, represent steps forward in our continued fight for immigrant justice.”
Broad coalition drives legislative support
Alex Vazquez, Maryland organizing director for CASA, the leading immigrant advocacy group in the region, said immigrant rights groups knew right after the election of President Donald Trump that “we were going to get straight to work to combat this anti-immigrant campaign that this administration was running.”
“We [saw] a lot of young people were already out there responding to the call to action,” Vazquez said.
Luz Chavez-Gonzales is a former Maryland youth organizer with United We Dream, a national immigrant-led network in the United States that focuses on empowering youth. She came to this country from Bolivia in 2002, when she was 4. As a recipient of the deferred deportation protections in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), she says she remains undocumented, but undeterred.
Chavez-Gonzales was called on by high school students in a single Montgomery County school during the COVID-19 pandemic to help them organize Friends of Asylum and Immigration Reform, or F.A.I.R., into a virtual community.
“I’m here to build those networks,” she said, seeing herself in those she mentors. “It’s just amazing to see the change that I wanted to see when I was in high school, and they are doing it now.”
F.A.I.R. grows, offers strength in numbers
Today, F.A.I.R. has student representatives in every Montgomery County high school. Their membership is largely immigrant or the children of immigrants, who have partnered with CASA on immigrant issues and organized support among their peers.
Watkins Mill High School junior Tracy Espinoza, a F.A.I.R. vice president, is the daughter of immigrants from Peru, who came to the U.S. as teenagers to support their families. Their status remains undocumented, she says, which has galvanized her actions.
“I knew it [immigrant protections] was something that was not only going to affect my family, but also my friends at school,” she said. “And so together, we lobbied our [state] delegates and senators, had some of our [F.A.I.R.] members submit testimony.”
F.A.I.R.’s networking and membership director Senaya Asfaw was born in the United States. Her parents fled Ethiopia to escape the political turmoil there in early 2000s. She is a junior at Montgomery Blair, the county’s largest high school and among its most diverse, with Latino, African American and Asian students accounting for 77% of its enrollment.
Asfaw headed to Annapolis to voice their fears about reports of ICE agents outside their school and a nearby church.
“They are scared because ICE might come to their school and take away everything they have been working toward. No child should have to choose between education and safety,” Asfaw told legislators in support of the Sensitive Locations Act, that eventually passed.
Aya Kouadio also made the trip to testify. A senior at Clarksville High School, she is F.A.I.R.’s social media manager. Born in the Ivory Coast, her family moved to Tunisia, and then to the United States to seek medical care for her brother.
She says F.A.I.R.’s Instagram account has more than 1,500 followers, with one recent post that detailed ICE sightings reaching 30,000 views.
“And, I was seeing so many of my friends reposting it. It let people know what’s going on [you] can trust, and it’s really powerful,” she said. “There’s a community of support here that’s strong.”
Activism is transformative
Espinoza says her newfound activism has been transformative. From being the girl “who used to be afraid to even just go up to a grocery store worker and ask, ‘Where’s the milk?’” the teen now speaks to more than 400 people at rallies.
“I was always frustrated with the world and how my parents, my cousins, my family and me, [were treated] based on different racial biases,” she said. “And it really taught me not to wait for someone to speak up for me, and rather to be that voice, to be the one to speak out when someone else is willing to [give me] a chair at the table.”
Sherwood High School senior Beteselame “Mitu” Tegegne agrees. Born in the United States, the child of Ethiopian immigrants, she says she carries a unique perspective.
“You understand both worlds, but you [also] have the privilege of going out and advocating and not being afraid of what is going to happen to you,” she said.
“Mitu is right,” adds Kouadio. “There’s strength in numbers. There’s strength in community. There’s strength I know that people have your back. People are willing to tell your story, even if you can’t, and we are.”
CASA organizer Vazquez says he is awed by the courage that these young people have to step up in such a hostile environment when their families and their communities are being torn apart, with youth left to pick up the pieces.
“During this critical time, it is important for organizations like CASA to give youth the space to advocate for their families and community and ultimately themselves,” he said. “Those actions will determine their future.”
Latino Caucus chair Martinez says he has their back.
“We remain unwavering in our commitment to building a Maryland where all people — regardless of immigration status — are treated with compassion, value and fairness,” he said. “Our work continues, and we are not backing down.”
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