- Stefania Arteaga of Comunidad Colectiva addresses a crowd at Tuesday's rally.
More than 400 people showed up to Marshall Park on Tuesday night to protest the Trump administration's announcement that they would be doing away with President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, putting hundreds of thousands of immigrants — many of whom have been in the country for well over a decade and have no knowledge of their home countries — at risk of deportation.
Creative Loafing spoke with one such person, Florencia Inige, a junior at Queens University and a DACA recipient. On Wednesday, Inige celebrated 16 years in the United States, but it was bittersweet, as her future here is now unclear.
We spoke with Inige about her life here and what Tuesday's announcement meant to her.
"I want to stay optimistic for my family, for my parents," Inige said. "They really want me and my sister to stay positive and pray that there's something better coming, but until I see that, I'm not sure."
#DefendDACA Rally: Florencia Inige from Creative Loafing on Vimeo.
In the slideshow below are more faces of DACA, as students and other immigrants took to the loudspeaker on Tuesday night to stand against Trump's decision and rally the resistance to stand and fight, calling on allies to contact N.C. senators Thom Thillis and Richard Burr to ask them to support DACA.
