Abstract
Jody Agius Vallejo sits down with immigrant rights activist and attorney, Lizbeth Mateo.
Sociologist Jody Agius Vallejo sat down with immigrant rights activist and attorney, Lizbeth Mateo, to discuss the National Immigrant Youth Alliance United We Dream, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and her activism around immigrant rights. Mateo is the first undocumented person appointed to a statewide post in California. Here are some of the highlights from their invigorating discussion.
Lizbeth Mateo
So, was it at Cal State Northridge that you became involved with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance?
I got involved with a couple of different immigrant rights activist organizations here in Los Angeles and then eventually, through them I got connected with some groups of undocumented people that were starting this network called “United We Dream” … Under Obama, we had a Congress where both houses were majority Democrat. That party, for years, said that all they needed was to control the house, senate, and the white house to be able to pass immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, to pass something. But they were giving us all these excuses, and we felt like we were running out of time. There were these mass deportations, and all this, you know, tension.…
So they were asking you to be patient when the Obama Administration was in the process of deporting more people than at any time in history? In fact, his level of deportations had far surpassed what Trump has done in his presidency so far, and yet they were asking you to wait it out.
It seemed like they were asking us to allow immigration reform to have a dignified death. We knew it wasn’t going to happen, but they wanted the broader immigrant rights movement to have a chance to introduce some sort of symbolic bill, then let it die. “We don’t need a symbolic bill, we need action. We are undocumented, our parents are undocumented.”
On Not Getting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
So, you applied for DACA and you were denied. DACA is important because it provides an opportunity for people to obtain a work permit and protection from detention and deportation for a time. So, here you are, having fulfilled all the eligibility requirements for DACA at the time and yet you were denied. Can you explain what the rationale was that was given to you?
The rationale was that I left the country as part of the Dream 9, a group of undocumented youth activists who left the U.S. and presented themselves at the border. I purposefully didn’t apply for DACA before I left because I wanted to be at the same level or have the same circumstances as everyone who was going to come back.
I left the country as part of the Dream 9, a group of undocumented youth activists who left the U.S. and presented themselves at the border. I purposefully didn’t apply for DACA before I left because I wanted to be at the same level or have the same circumstances as everyone who was going to come back.
When I applied in 2015, I got a letter almost a year later saying that they intended to deny me because I left. They gave me the chance to write a letter to explain where I was and what I was doing. I thought, well you know where I was, you know what I was doing— there’s just no way of hiding it and I’m not going to try to hide it. But, here’s my explanation, and here’s why I think I should be granted DACA… at the end of the day, it’s a discretionary program. You have the discretion to say whether someone qualifies. Also, my exit was very brief. And there are cases where an exit is very brief, and it doesn’t meet the criteria required to be considered for some other immigration method so it should also apply in DACA.
So, I worked with my immigration attorney to basically provide the entire story of my life, to give them everything I could about my life up until that exact moment, and we were replying to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS.) I did a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on my case, and later found out that I was originally immediately denied, but somehow, for some reason, they decided to send me a letter saying that we have intent to deny it instead. On my application, there is a stamp that says “denied” and it’s crossed out with a signature on it and they sent me that letter instead. I spent about 7 months trying to get DACA once I got the first letter.
The Law and Undocumented People
California has the most progressive laws that seek to integrate undocumented people. Can you explain why allowing undocumented people to drive legally has been so impactful in California?
Absolutely. Decriminalizing licenses, driving, and in addition to that, limiting the cooperation between local police and ICE, has made a huge difference for undocumented people. Before, driving without a license could mean arrest, which meant contact with ICE, which meant potential deportation or detention, or prolonged detention. ICE had access to information and ICE had practices where they would basically tell a police officer, or police department or jail to keep that person detained for an extra 48 hours and they would come pick them up. That can still happen in other states, but in California, that is not supposed to happen anymore.
It used to be that if someone was caught driving without a license, the very least thing that could happen was that the car would be impounded. So there were lots of people losing cars that they would use to pick up the kids from school or go to work, which meant really interrupting in a major way their lives and livelihood. The ability to pick up their kids from school and keep them safe, the major things. The other extreme was to actually get arrested for driving without a license, especially if it were your second or third time, which could mean contact with ICE, getting detained, and then being removed right away. That’s how a lot of families were separated for a while.
Another policy is to make sure that ICE doesn’t have access to certain information. ICE can still access certain information, not to the level they were before, but they can still find people with minor criminal convictions, minor arrests, or have people who have had an encounter with the law in some way. Limiting the collaborations between ICE and local police.
Many people aren’t aware that the majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States are long-settled and have lived here a decade or longer. Deportation disrupts families, communities, and disrupts the functioning of the collective. You see this in your work as an immigration lawyer. Tell me a little bit about that.
Yeah, so being undocumented in this country is very stressful. For the children and the family who are not undocumented as well.
I really felt that when the DREAM act failed, and I came back from D.C.,—I had been working there to get this bill passed, lobbying and organizing—as soon as I walked into this place, there was the older lady I used to work with. She started sobbing and crying. I was like, “Rose, why are you crying?” She said, “I’m so sorry that the DREAM act failed.”
I have people who reached out to me and said “I’m friends with this family, how can I help them? How can I protect them? What can I do?” Immigration under this current administration has really disrupted things and disrupted people and how they interact with one another. People just feel so helpless and so often I get asked by people “What can I do?” and I have to say, just have a plan in place—but there’s nothing you can do.
Has Trump affected your activism in any way?
Right now, my activism is limited to actually trying to change certain things for my clients. Number one is making sure that my clients have the best possible representation they can have. With clients like Edith Espinal living in sanctuary in a church, that requires me trying to figure out who can go to DC and do advocacy there. It’s not as hands on and confrontational as before and it’s not always as on the ground like, “Let’s organize all these things,” but so my activism has shifted.