Stop deportation push, activists urge Arkansas attorney general

Mayra Esquivel, immigrant integration director for the Arkansas United Community Coalition, speaks Tuesday alongside other Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients during a news conference at the Northwest Arkansas Immigrant Resource Center in Springdale. The Arkansas United Community Coalition is spearheading an effort to persuade Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge not to work to cancel the DACA program.
Mayra Esquivel, immigrant integration director for the Arkansas United Community Coalition, speaks Tuesday alongside other Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients during a news conference at the Northwest Arkansas Immigrant Resource Center in Springdale. The Arkansas United Community Coalition is spearheading an effort to persuade Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge not to work to cancel the DACA program.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's top aide met Tuesday in Little Rock with advocates, who sought to sway Rutledge from her criticism of an Obama-administration policy benefiting young illegal aliens.

Rutledge, a Republican, joined nine other state attorneys general in a letter urging President Donald Trump to abandon the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in June.

The program, which began under Democratic President Barack Obama five years ago, delays deportation for illegal aliens who arrived to the United States as children while authorizing them to work or go to school.

Rutledge has cast the program as an "unlawful" overreach of presidential authority under Obama. But she also said she does not want to see people currently covered by the program deported.

"This is about upholding the rule of law," Rutledge said in a release last month announcing she had joined others in a letter calling for an end to the order. Her office issued a similar statement Tuesday.

Maria Meneses, a 19-year-old college student and beneficiary of the deferred action program, said Tuesday that she had tried repeatedly to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Rutledge in the month since the attorney general signed the letter.

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The meeting arranged Tuesday was with Rutledge's chief of staff, Carl Vogelpohl. Rutledge spent the day in southeast Arkansas, where she held discussions with faith and education leaders in three counties, according to a spokesman.

Arkansas United Community Coalition, an advocacy organization based in Northwest Arkansas, arranged the meeting with Vogelpohl, Meneses and about 15 other supporters of the program.

Later Tuesday afternoon, several deferred action recipients and supporters gathered at the coalition's office in Springdale.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics from March showed that more than 10,000 Arkansans had been accepted for deferred status under the program.

Teary eyed as she read letters written by people protected by the policy, Meneses said they would be lurched back into fear of deportation should the policy be revoked. She delivered a list of questions for Rutledge and repeated her offer to meet the attorney general in person, inviting her to dinner.

Vogelpohl said he could not respond on the attorney general's behalf but promised to deliver the questions and letters to Rutledge.

Rutledge spokesman Judd Deere said later Tuesday that Rutledge stood by her letter asking Trump to phase out the policy. Deere said he did not know whether Rutledge would accept the dinner offer.

Community Coalition advocates, both in Little Rock and in Springdale, said they were appreciative of the meeting with Vogelpohl but reluctant to expect change.

"It's a lot easier to respond with a sterile statement when you don't have to look in a 19-year-old medical student's eyes," said Camille Richoux of Arkansas Youth for Progressive Change.

Richoux called Rutledge's stance "political" rather than legal, and said Arkansans would have to be swayed to support the program to change leaders' minds.

Trump has not said what he will do with the program. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette asked the state's representatives in Congress about the program in February, and three of six responded that they supported upholding immigration laws as written.

In Springdale, some of those gathered were college graduates, and all proudly described driving around family members, supporting their families with jobs and paying taxes thanks to the work permits and ability to get driver's licenses that came with deferred action. Those livelihoods and contributions to society would disappear without the program, they said.

"We are human, we are people, and we just want to live peacefully like everyone else," said Mayra Esquivel, a deferred action recipient, graduate of the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and coalition member. "I want to be able to put that degree into work."

Information for this article was contributed by Dan Holtmeyer of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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Camille Richoux (top left), Maria Meneses and Guadalupe Jaso talk with Carl Vogelpohl, chief of staff for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on Tuesday afternoon during a meeting at the attorney general’s office.

Metro on 08/16/2017

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