By CMSC Staff ~ January 25, 2018
Mayra Garibo, an undergraduate student at California State University, Dominguez Hills was accepted into the California-Mexico Dreamers' Study Abroad Program and scheduled to spend December 2017 conducting ethnographic research on her family history and origins. This unique study abroad opportunity for DACA students was a prayer answered for Mayra who longed to see her father in Mexico.
On September 5th, 2017, when the Trump administration announced its termination of DACA and Advance Parole for DACA recipients, the world was turned upside-down for Mayra. The Winter 2017 California-Mexico Dreamer Study Abroad Program was canceled, leaving Mayra and 75 other students with pending Advance Parole applications in the USCIS processing center.
Last Sunday, Mayra's father died in Mexico, and Mayra was left with no other choice but to watch her father's funeral through a livestream on her cell phone. Now, Mayra's grandfather has cancer, and she is attempting one more time, along with the assistance of the California-Mexico Studies Center to request consideration for Advance Parole.
"I had the right to say goodbye to my dad": Dreamer had to see on a cell phone the funeral of her father in Mexico
By Isaias Alvarado, Univision News ~ January 13, 2018 (Translated by Prof. Armando Vazquez-Ramos)
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Mayra Garibo has not stopped crying. Two days ago she received the bad news that her father died in Mexico, a situation that made her remember the vulnerability of her current situation in this country: she is dreamer.
In Los Angeles, where he has lived for 17 years, the immigration authorities denied him a special permit to leave the country immediately and attend the funeral.
This Friday her father was buried in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, and she had to settle for seeing part of the funeral service on her cell phone, through WhatsApp.
"I had the right to say goodbye to my dad," Mayra said painfully in an interview with Univision Noticias. "When I left the Immigration building it gave me so much courage to know that I could not say goodbye to my father and that it was not in my hands." At that moment, I felt that I had no power, which was something I had no control over, "she lamented. .
On Thursday, Mayra, 25, a Business Administration student at California State University Dominguez Hills, south of Los Angeles County, was surprised by the news that her father, Guadalupe Garibo, 42, was found Lifeless that morning in the yard of his neighbors. Local media reported that the man fell from a second floor on Wednesday and his body was discovered until the next day.
"I had (almost) 20 years of not seeing my dad," Mayra said. "What happened is already a lot of pain, butthe most difficult thing is not being able to say goodbye to him."
Confident that she had enough evidence to apply for a permit to travel abroad (advance parole) for humanitarian reasons, Mayra showed up at the Office of Naturalization and Immigration Services (USCIS) in downtown Los Angeles. He had his father's death certificate already guaranteed by a notary public.
She thought that she would go straight to the airport, but after the cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that option was also eliminated. An immigration agent told him that his case had to be processed in Washington DC and that approval would take weeks.
"I told them, 'This is my humanitarian case, my dad is going to be buried and I do not have weeks to wait.' But basically they told me they could not do anything," said Mayra.
After leaving the government building on Friday, Mayra felt "punished" by the strict immigration policies of President Donald Trump. With that feeling, he took his cell phone and wrote a tweet addressed directly to the president.
"@realDonaldTrump, my father who I have not seen in more than 20 years, died yesterday due to an accident, being a DACA beneficiary I was denied the advance parole, was it not enough to 'deserve' to say goodbye to my father? ", published in the social network.
Mayra, who also works at a food distributor, said she has shared her case so that other dreamers do not go through the pain of not being able to travel to bury a loved one.
His wish was to say goodbye to his father with music from the band El Recodo, his favorite group. From her cell phone, she followed the mass this Friday, thanks to a paternal aunt who transmitted the ceremony through her cell phone, still refusing to accept her departure. "I thought it was not my dad who was in the coffin, it hurt me so much not to be there," she said through tears.
Last Saturday was the last time that Mayra spoke by phone with her father, who stayed in Sinaloa when she, her mother and her younger brother (now 21 years old and also a beneficiary of DACA) emigrated to the United States in 2001. "He told me he was trying to get papers fixed," he recalled.
The young woman had already tried by different means to take advantage of the DACA program to travel to Sinaloa. One of his options was a program of the California-Mexico Studies Center. Since 2012, more than 120 dreamers have reunited with their roots and relatives in Mexico thanks to that initiative.
"He would have given me the opportunity to see my dad," she regretted not having done so.
This dreamer born in Sinaloa sends, once again, a message to President Trump seeking to open a window for those who are in their same situation: "I would say it is not fair for other people to decide what you have to do and the way you should to live".
With tears, this young woman said that if she is allowed to travel to Sinaloa, even if it is several weeks away, she would accept it in order to reach the cemetery where the remains of her father now rest. "I do not want this to be the reason, but I want to see my dad."
Her father, who made his living fishing and doing other jobs, left a message of encouragement during their telephone conversation last Saturday, not knowing that this would be his last talk: "He told me to keep fighting."
Original source: Univision News
Watch the following news report on Mayra's story from Estella TV (Spanish):
Otro Video Sobre Mayra Garibo
Una joven ‘Dreamer” no pudo asistir al funeral de su padre en México debido a que no contaba con la autorización para viajar a ese país.
