Students join march for immigration reform

Alicia Nieves only knew a couple of people among the crowd.

But she said she felt as if she was among family. Nieves and the crowd marched to the White House on Saturday.

“There were people from Florida and California,” said Nieves, a freshman at IU. “It felt very intimate.”

Wearing white, Nieves was one of the 16 students from IU who traveled to Washington, D.C., over the weekend to participate in an immigration reform march on Saturday that aimed at creating greater awareness for the DREAM Act.

The DREAM Act would allow students who meet certain requirements to enlist in the military or college and start a path toward citizenship, according to the DREAM Act Portal website.

The idea to travel to Washington, D.C., emerged in February when students approached Tim Gonzalez, the multi-cultural minister at St. Paul’s Catholic Center, about organizing a group of students to go to the march to join the Trail of Dream walkers.

The walkers were four students from Florida who began walking in January and have continued to walk until they reached the White House on Saturday. The college students wanted to create greater awareness for the DREAM Act.

Gonzalez said the church teamed up with La Casa Latino Cultural Center at IU to have two vans that would allow about 16 students to go on the trip along with two to three drivers.

For many students in Bloomington, the DREAM Act hits close to home because some are undocumented and are figuring out ways to seek a higher education while having their immigration status in limbo.

“A number of students who were raised here in Bloomington graduated from high school and are now attending IU or Ivy Tech fall under this category,” Gonzalez said. “They don’t have the same access to funding opportunities as other students.”

Although most of the students were from IU, there were also students from Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, IU–Purdue University Indianapolis and one student from Purdue University.

The group left Bloomington on Friday night and arrived in Alexandria, Va., by Saturday morning.

From there, the group met up with other people participating in the march and the four student walkers from the Trail of Dreams.

Nieves and the other students spent the six-mile journey to the White House chanting such things such as “education not deportation.”

“There was a lot of energy,” Nieves said of the walk.

The students were also provided signs that asked President Barack Obama to stop deporting families.

Once the students made it to Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., they heard speeches about the DREAM Act and immigration reform and heard bands playing.

Nieves said there were people from different nationalities that came together at the park to raise awareness for the issue.

“It was about the DREAM Act,” she said. “It was about doing immigration reform right.”
This was not Nieves’ first stint as an activist for immigration reform.

She has participated in other marches about immigration reform and is also involved in DREAM IU.

The group was started earlier this year and works to create a greater awareness of the DREAM Act at IU.

Joshio Sandoval, a sophomore at IUPUI, also joined the group of IU students as they headed off to Washington, D.C.

Sandoval said he had participated in immigration marches in Chicago before.
Immigration reform hits close to home for Sandoval because he is the first generation of his family to be born in the United States.

“I do it for the people that have put their lives on the line for me,” he said.

Nieves plans to continue pushing for greater awareness of the DREAM Act at IU during the summer and next year.

“Come back as a sophomore with DREAM IU and be more aggressive on this issue,” she said. “Immigration reform cannot be put off anymore.”