Members of Iowa’s Latino community are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward newly elected President Donald Trump. They admit to fear and anxiety over comments he’s made about immigration, but they also express hope he’ll eventually see the light.
President-elect Trump has vowed to end the policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the executive order enacted by President Obama that has allowed the children of undocumented immigrants temporary stay in the U.S. The co-founder of Dream Iowa, Monica Reyes Rodriguez, is one of those young people. She says Trump is a businessman who will come to realize the profits outweigh the losses in opting out of a mass deportation.
“I am confident that this nation will value what I have to offer to the only country I consider my home and will allow me to stay here,” she says.
Reyes Rodriguez says she has always known DACA was a temporary program that could be removed at any time.
A national vice president for the League of United Latin American Citizens in the Midwest, Joe Enriquez Henry, says his group will continue to work on mobilizing Latino voters.
“We’re not going to give up," he says. "The Latino community is growing. Our voting bloc is growing substantially, and we will move forward.”
Henry is heading to Chicago for a national meeting of LULAC to talk about what can be done to protect DACA. President-elect Trump has said he would end the policy.