LYNN — Gianna Ruiz, a 10th grader at KIPP Academy Lynn Collegiate, knows the fear that children of immigrant families feel all too well, which stems from the possibility of their parents being deported.
Ruiz, 16, said her father was deported to the Dominican Republic when she was 8 years old. The last time she visited him was four years ago.
“My mom was thrown into the position of a single mom with three kids and I don’t think other families should be put into that position,” Ruiz said. “It’s been really challenging because I haven’t really had a dad my whole life because he lives so far and my mom had a lot of anxiety because she was forced to be a single mom. It put us all in a position of isolation and fear of what to do without two parents.”
Ruiz joined a busload of her KIPP classmates to participate in the Children’s March to Protect Immigrant Families, organized by the Essex County Community Organization (ECCO) with 38 co-sponsoring organizations, on Thursday to protest federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies.
Led by children in families affected by ICE policies and ECCO members, marchers gathered at the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, before proceeding to the State House, to urge state legislators to approve legislation that would protect immigrant families and strengthen communities, and oppose budget amendments that would deepen the state’s involvement in immigration enforcement, according to information from ECCO.
The march was scheduled to end in front of Gov. Charlie Baker’s State House office, where children shared stories, spoken word, and singing. A delegation of clergy accompanied by some of the children were set to deliver the children’s letters to Baker’s aides and to aides for Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
Ruiz said she wanted to participate so that people know it’s not OK to tear families apart, no matter what stigmas they may have toward immigrants.
“(Immigrants are) people with family, with friends, with connections to people you can tear apart by deporting somebody,” Ruiz said. “You don’t know somebody’s story just because they’re an immigrant, and that doesn’t mean they don’t belong in this country any less than anybody else.”
According to ECCO, marchers were urging state legislators to approve three protections that would bar police inquiries about immigration status, prohibit state and local contracts with ICE and provide due process protections for immigrants in police custody.
“Governor Baker believes the focus of federal immigration officials should be on dangerous criminals, and has filed legislation to continue enforcing long-standing policies enacted during the Obama Administration to detain violent and dangerous criminals who have been convicted of heinous crimes like rape and murder in order to keep the people of Massachusetts safe,” said Sarah Finlaw, the governor’s deputy communications director.
Alexandra Piñeros Shields, ECCO executive director, said in Massachusetts, deportations of immigrants are up by 50 percent this year. She said a lot of mothers and fathers are getting deported and the impact on children is horrifying.
Piñeros Shields said teachers from public schools have told ECCO that many students are afraid of coming to school because they’re scared to come home and find their parents are gone.
In Massachusetts, she said there are 150,000 undocumented immigrants, with many in Boston and the metro area, including Lynn. She said children who know their parents are undocumented are living in fear.
“It’s important for our state legislators to understand the pain and trauma that immigrant children are living through due to the 50 percent increase in deportation,” Piñeros Shields said.
Haja Ba, 17, a 10th grader at KIPP, said she wanted to protest because there are lots of immigrants in Lynn. She said it’s sad to see what’s happening in the media, and what the president is saying about immigrants.
Ba said her parents are immigrants from Guinea, Africa. She said her family isn’t really affected by ICE policies, but a lot of her friends’ families are. It seems like the immigrants being impacted are Latino and Muslim, she said.
“We want to show them that kids care about this and kids are seeing what’s happening and that it’s affecting us,” Ba said.
