Children Express A Powerful Wish for the Holidays: Allow All Families to Stay Together
“I think that no one should live in fear of being deported and separated from their families. I believe that the way we are in our families, taking care of each other, is how we should live in the world. My family is partly immigrants, but we have the privilege of having citizenship. I want to use my privilege so that deportations don’t ever happen to another immigrant family.”
- Gabriel, 11 years old, Portland, Oregon
Listening to 11-year-old Gabriel talking about why he’s concerned about the impact of immigration enforcement policies on families—even through his own family has U.S. citizenship—I knew we were on to something. As an organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, over the past two months I’ve had the honor and privilege of being part of a team that has collected thousands of letters from young people around the country, all demanding one thing: an end to deportations so that all of our families and communities can stay together.
Our A Wish for the Holidays campaign has highlighted two important, yet often overlooked, truths. First of all,
