An estimated 36,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients identify as LGBTQ, including Mo, a University of Chicago student. Mo was brought here by his parents when he was just five years old, with no possessions other than a plush Barney doll, which he remembers clutching to his body as his family made the treacherous journey across the border in search of a better life. “Barney was my comfort. I still have that Barney doll to this day,” he said laughing in a video released by the Human Rights Campaign.
But despite growing up here—“the United States is my home. I live here; my entire life is here. I have a future planned out in my head”—Mo’s life is being held ransom by Donald Trump, after he ended the program last September. He’s now demanding Stephen Miller’s white supremacist immigration wish list in exchange for protections for young immigrants like Mo. But without the DREAM Act, Mo could be torn from the only country he’s ever known. “I don’t know anyone in Mexico,” he said. “Going back would really mean just me arriving without any kind of plan. So it’s terrifying.”
Like hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients, Mo knew his very life hinged on which candidate would win on Election Day. On the campaign trail, Trump attacked DACA as “unconstitutional” (no court has ever ruled that) and promised to undo it on day one of his presidency. “I think I knew DACA was always going to go away, from the moment the election happened,” Mo said. “The election was very, very hard for me. I had an actual breakdown in the middle of my lobby, of my dorm lobby.”
For 36,000 LGBTQ DACA recipients, the fact is that deportation could mean persecution—and even death. According to the Center for American Progress, without the DREAM Act these young people could “face deportation to countries they may not have set foot in since childhood and where their lives could be in danger. In much of the world, deportation is a death sentence for LGBTQ people. Same-sex sexual acts are criminalized in at least 72 countries; being gay is punishable by death in eight of those countries.” Immigration is a human rights issue.
Alejandro Avilés, Director of Outreach and Engagement for the Human Rights Campaign, told the Huffington Post that he hopes the video and Mo’s brave personal testimony can help “change hearts and minds of anyone willing to listen. As a gay man and the son of immigrants, I understand how difficult it can be to listen to public servants dehumanizing the type of people who raised me,” he said. “This is unacceptable. Their stories compel voters and elected officials to recognize their humanity and acknowledge they are just as American as I am.”