RESIST: The Choiceless Choice

What began 15 years ago with a single call from a Peruvian mother stuck in a detention center, Sandigo now receives daily requests from parents in “mixed status” families—children born citizens of the United States with parents who are here illegally. Panicked and desperate at the prospect of deportation, parents’ on the other end of the line agonize over whether they will remove their children to countries they do not know or they leave their children behind with no parent, no advocate and uncertain legal rights.

In calling, some parents request Sandigo sign power-of-attorney enabling her to talk to schools, hospitals and federal courts. Others plead she’ll take their children in if needed and even those with the option of sending their children to legal relatives, ask for the support of Sandigo’s education and knowledge of the system. Of an estimated four million American children who have a parent in the country illegally, Sandigo has signed power of attorney papers to some 1,400 of those children in the last 15 years. The bulk of these conversations have taken place since Trump’s inauguration. Amidst Trump’s consistent threats of deportation, the denial of DAPA (a sister law to DACA to provide parents of citizen children with the ability to work) and his administration’s hard line battle in Congress over the future of DACA, we push our representatives and ourselves to stand in defiance against political moves relying on fear and intolerance.

We respect those here under DACA as our fellow American citizens. And we thank you Nora Sandigo, for reminding us how much good there is in the world. - Maureen Post

Support the efforts by donating goods to the Nora Sandigo Children’s Foundation by visiting http://norasandigochildrenfoundation.org/

Photo Credit : WIRED magazine