AUDREY CAYETANO: Hey, wizards, welcome to Crossing Borders, the podcast that explores intersection of immigration, politics and the real concerns going around. My name is Audrey Cayetano, and I’m here with,
HEIDY VELASQUEZ: Heidy Velasquez.
STEPHANIE PARRA: And Stephanie Parra.
CAYETANO: So we each got the opportunity to do research and interview people. So I got to interview an immigration officer. Her name was Elizabeth Orozco. Who did you get to interview Heidy?
VELASQUEZ: I got to interview my madrina, Jennifer. And yeah, she’s a senior in high school. And who’d you interview Stephanie?
PARRA: I got to interview one of my close friends, Genevieve, and my younger sister. So the topic relates to her in the way that the majority of her family are immigrants. So if whatever mass deportations, which Trump said would take place, were to actually happen, then the majority of her family would be deported, and so she would suffer from that.
VELASQUEZ: I totally agree with that, as there’s many kids that haven’t even reached their teenage years and are probably concerned and worried from getting separated from their own family.
CAYETANO: So Elizabeth Orozco, she’s like I said before, an immigration officer. She does consultations. This has affected her business, because she has been getting more calls recently about people asking how they can get their papers or green card or if there’s anything that she could do to help them, definitely. So I think right now we should talk about the new election. What do you guys think is going to happen?
VELASQUEZ: Well, Trump has talked about it when he was president. A couple years back, he was talking about deportation and wanting to, like, solve the issue, but he never ended up really doing anything as big as he’s saying what he wants to do in his four years right now. So I feel like if he actually does take action, all immigrant families will be very worried about their own families and just getting separated from their own children.
PARRA: Well, I think that if the unfortunate event were to happen, that it would be different than the last time he was president and he went to actually, make the actions happen, that it would affect me too, because I have a lot of family members who are also immigrants and it kind of scares me a little, because I don’t want to lose them.
CAYETANO: There are many concerns with what is going around, and it is said, and it’s not like if it happens, it’s been said that it’s going to happen. In an article that I read on CBN News, the article is called, “What could Trump’s second term bring? Deportations to race, January 6 pardons, and more.” In this article, he says, ‘I don’t want to do that. I’m not looking to do that,’ Trump said, I think it’s terrible to do, but we have no choice. What do you guys think about this statement that he said?
VELASQUEZ: I understand where he is coming from, as I do understand there’s a lot of immigrants coming into the US right now. I understand why he wants to take these actions as it is affecting the economy, because there’s a lot of immigrants already, and so I don’t want to say I totally agree with him, but I can understand where he’s coming from and why he’s concerned of the whole immigrant population.
PARRA: Okay, I agree with Heidy here, because I do understand what he means with there being immigrants, okay, like, there have been some that have committed crimes, but there’s something else here, like, not every immigrant is somebody who’s gonna do stuff like that. There have been immigrants here who are like, basically the foundation of this country. Like their jobs, they take the jobs that nobody else wants to take. They work, they pay taxes. They have been here for many years. So not everyone is bad, like Trump is insinuating.
CAYETANO: Yeah, I love that you made that point, because that is true. Like there are people that are doing good here, and they came from another place, like 80% of undocumented immigrants have been in the US for more than a decade. With that said, a lot of people who work here are immigrants, right? 75% of farm workers in California are undocumented, which, if we didn’t have that, a lot of our crops and things would not be successful, and without that, that wouldn’t benefit our economy.
VELASQUEZ:I agree with that, as many of the upper class people don’t want to take any jobs that are seen as the lower jobs.
CAYETANO: Going on about how 75% of farmworkers are undocumented, in California alone too, let’s talk about how long the process is to get papers, because I’m sure that now that there is a new presidential election who wants to do a mass deportation so they are going to want their papers, or green card, because they wanna be here with their family, and they don’t wanna be separated from them. So, I was able to have the opportunity to talk to Elizabeth Orozco, who is an immigration officer. She told me that two main ways that people can get their papers are that you have to have a qualifying relative to get your papers, which is the main way, and that takes about a year. The second way takes five, and obviously that’s a long time, but it’s worth the time you have to wait. But, the only way it takes five years is if you don’t have a qualifying relative and if you have a good background too. So, what do you guys think about the process?
VELASQUEZ: Well, coming from someone who has a family member that was from Guatemala and came here to California two years ago, I think that they did take the one year process. Now my madrina and padrino were saying how they were very worried during the process but they took the opportunity and they knew that even if they had to wait for the one year process that it would be worth it, as my padrino wanted his son to have the opportunity to be here and to go to amazing schools like Middle College, like us, who have the opportunity to be here. I could see how concerned they were when they found out about the election because they want to bring my padrino’s daughter here now. But, they’re very scared and concerned as they might not be able to bring her before Trump applies all these new orders about immigration.
CAYETANO: Yeah, those are very real concerns of people wanting to bring family over, but now they have this barrier in the way. What do you think, Stephanie?
PARRA: I think that these processes can take very long. A family member, who’s close to me. His dad is an American citizen, he wasn’t an American citizen as he was born in Mexico. His dad was able to bring him, but in order for him to get his legal status fixed, it took twenty years. He was waiting for twenty years, it’s a very long process. And personally, I think that instead of prioritizing getting rid of these people who come here to this country, they should just give them legal status instead because they help the country in a lot of ways.
CAYETANO: That’s a very good point. I agree with you that there can be different ways. This process, obviously it can be very long, but at the end of the day they want the best for their own children. They want them to come to California’s great schools and they want to have a great education. We have some great schools here and some good education, like here at Middle College, and what they ultimately want for their kids is to have a good education.
CAYETANO: I think that this was a very informative podcast, and we hope that you guys enjoyed it. Thank you for listening.
