About two Friday’s ago, I had the awesome opportunity to travel by bus on a 12 hour bus ride (round trip) to faciliate two workshops on the Dream Act for student groups at the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology.

The workshops were organized by an awesome student leader of the NYSYLC (yey Sergio!) who spent this past summer researching and following up with student groups in upstate New York, approaching each contact he made with an offer for the YLC to come out and conduct a Dream Act organizing workshop

As I made my way to Rochester, watching how the sky scrapers were replaced by farmland, I was not expecting to be greeted by ICE agents at my Rochester station.

But I should have not been surprised. NY is a large state that reaches out all the way to Canada and whose border cities make it accesible to reach Canada. Undocumented Students should never try to take a bus on Greyhound heading either to Cleveland, Chicago, Toronto, or Rochester.  ICE agents will stop you and pull you out of the bus if they suspect that you are undocumented.

I  am not a undocumented student, although I have many friends and family members, who are. Even though I was born in NY, my heart raced at the sight of ICE agents who were in their military style green outfits.  I could only imagine if Sergio, the Dream Act student, who put the workshops together, would have joined me in this trip.  When I arrived, I quickly rushed out of the bus, which was headed to Toronto. I saw ICE agents jump on the bus and ask other travelers about their immigration status. One of them made a motion to walk towards me, but then stopped when I jumped into the car that was picking me up. I rushed out as I had two workshops to facilitate and had no time for ICE.

When I arrived at the RIT, I was greeted by a group of 40 students representing different student clubs in the college. I explained what had happened to me and many of the students shared their experiences about traveling on the Greyhound bus. For the most part, the students in the room were not Dream Act students but they were symphatetic as they had parents who were undocumented or had recently acquired their green card. One student shared that it was difficult for his stepfather to visit him at his campus, since he was frequently harrased by ICE agents who demanded to see his Permanent Residency card. The workshop was exciting and the students participating were excited to collect petitions and share what they learned about the Dream Act to fellow students and their Representative Louise Slaughter, who has not co-sponsored the Dream Act.

On my second workshop, I met up with the students at the University of Rochester, who had organized a Dream ACT workshop, co-sponsored by the students of Chinese Students’ Association,  Pi Delta Psi and the Korean American Students’ Association. While a much smaller group, they were just as enthusiastic to learn about the Dream Act and Get Active.

One of the students present, Thanh Ngo, even wrote up a piece in his student newspaper:

The workshop was, indeed, both greatly interactive and informative. Members of the three associations participated in a brief activity in which each was given an immigrant status.
The groups were each allowed to step forward or backward accordingly to the privileges that they received. This activity helped us visualize how significant the gaps between the statuses are.

I was excited by both the energy and enthusiasm to support our Dream Act campaign at both of these schools. Most of these students, in the sleepy town of Rochester, NY, were shocked at how destructive a broken immigration system can be for young people just like them.

I was eager to go home on my midnight bus ride to NYC. When I was dropped off at the bus station, I remembered why I made the exhausting trip in the first place. As I got on the bus, with my heart palpitating, an ICE agent approached and began to single out every person of color in the bus and asked them their nationality. Surprisingly, he singled out a group of Amish folks because they had forgotten their passports or didnt have any. He let them go.

He stopped and asked me.

“I am an American”….and after taking a good look at my face, he moved on.

I spent the entire trip home wondering why I didnt say something snappy and confronted ICE. It would have been my pleasure to get back at them for deporting friends and family members all these years and thereby separating us.

But I didnt. It doesnt mean I fight any less against the injustices of a broken immigration system.  With every student, who gets educated about the realities that Dreamers face and get active to let others know,  it is a victory for me.

By @LaMarichola from the @nysylc

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