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Local residents 'Walk in Solidarity with Dreamers'

Lead Summary
,
By
Lori Sorenson

It was a small, but committed group that circled the Rock County Courthouse Square on foot Sunday night.
With signs and songs, they carried the message that St. Catherine Church — and Christians in general — support immigrant families affected by recent government policies.
“These are fellow human beings who are very good people contributing to our communities,” said Father Tom Jennings. “They deserve protection and support and our prayers and our solidarity with them.”
Sunday’s march was the church’s response to President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that he would end the provisions of President Barack Obama’s 2012 immigration policy, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
DACA allows certain illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.
An estimated 800,000 people in the United States are affected by DACA, and roughly 6,000 are living in Minnesota.
“They are Minnesotans in colleges, careers and churches, and they’re volunteering in our community,” Jennings said.
“These are wonderful young people, and we wanted to do a little something on Sunday, the Lord’s Day …
“We don’t want them to feel all alone. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as human beings.”
One of the event organizers, Mary Lou Mulligan, said immigration hasn’t been a hot-button topic in Rock County, but hurting families are nearby in Worthington.
“We don’t have that many undocumented immigrants living here,” Mulligan said. “But we’ve heard the stories of what families are going through.”
Mulligan said Trump’s action is having a devastating effect on nearby families, some of whom have shared their experiences with St. Catherine Church members.
“There’s a gentleman from Guatemala who came to Worthington 24 years ago,” Mulligan said. “He left because of political unrest in his country.”
She said the young man had been promised asylum, but documents were never filed and now he’s facing deportation.
Sunday’s event in Luverne was called “Walk in Solidarity With Dreamers,” in reference to the beneficiaries of DACA who had been “living the American dream.”
St. Catherine Church in Luverne started responding to immigrant issues in February after President Trump first implemented his controversial travel ban aimed at Muslim countries.
Mulligan said she doesn’t see today’s immigrants as that different from her own Scandinavian relatives who arrived in the United States in the early 1900s.
“My mother used to tell me the story about how her dad came over in 1910 and they spoke Flemish,” she said. “My mother learned English when she went to school.”
She said when they lived in Boston about 20 years ago there were people from many countries — Ireland, Asia and other parts of the world — who had come illegally.
“Some had work permits that had expired and they had overstayed,” Mulligan said. “Nobody did anything about it then.”
President Trump on Tuesday, Sept. 5, ordered an end to the Obama-era program that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling it an “amnesty-first approach” and urging Congress to pass a replacement before he begins phasing out its protections in six months.
As early as March, officials said, some of the 800,000 young adults brought to the United States illegally as children who qualify for DACA will become eligible for deportation.
But Jennings said there’s time to take action, and he shared information at Sunday’s march about how to communicate with elected officials.
“There’s hope,” he said. “There’s a lot of momentum in Congress for immigration reform. … The bigger goal is immigration reform, but we start with small steps.”

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