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Valley with a Heart raises funds for families of sick children

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Benefit at Alluring Vapors in Hazleton raises money for sick 6-year-old

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; A national fight to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program came to Public Square when an advocacy group staged a protest Sunday on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>The program shields young immigrants from deportation and provides work permits for employment. Former President Barack Obama launched the program in 2012 for people who have been in the U.S. since 2007, were younger than 16 at the time of their arrival and were younger than 31 as of 2012.</p><p>Action Together NEPA organized the rally in the hopes of protecting the program, also know as DACA.</p><p>Recent pressure on the Trump administration from a variety of sides, with some calling for an end to DACA and others calling on Trump to protect it, shows signs of coming to a head. According to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348906-white-house-daca-decision-coming-tuesday" target="_blank">The Hill</a>, the White House is expected to announce its decision on DACA Tuesday, leaving groups like Action Together NEPA to make last-ditch efforts to rally support for the program.</p><p>Supporters of DACA sported umbrellas to listen to a variety of speakers discuss the benefits of supporting the nearly-800,000 DACA recipients, who have come to be known as &#8220;dreamers.&#8221;</p><p>Rabbi Roger Lerner, leader of Temple B&#8217;nai B&#8217;rith in Kingston, said that there is Biblical precedence for programs like DACA, citing scriptural passages highlighting an importance of being welcoming to those from foreign lands.</p><p>&#8220;We need to make this nation a welcoming nation,&#8221; Luger said.</p><p>Rodrigo Gereda, a facilitator at the St. Martin Luther King Jr. Pastoral Outreach Center in Kingston, asked the audience to think of the things that they have done over the past two years.</p><p>&#8220;Our loves, our studies, our labors, our fears,&#8221; Gereda said. &#8220;That&#8217;s all DACA is: a 24-month reprieve.&#8221;</p><p>Gereda pointed to other protest movements, like the Black Lives Matter movement, as a point of inspiration for DACA supporters to rally behind, encouraging the supporters to not think of themselves as separate from those being helped by DACA.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s no longer about us and them; it&#8217;s about saving this planet,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Consider yourself an &#8216;us,&#8217; a dreamer.&#8221;</p><p>Belam Orozco, a community organizer working with Make the Road Pa in Scranton, is a recipient of the DACA program, but she said that she doesn&#8217;t think of herself as a &#8220;dreamer.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a dreamer anymore; I&#8217;m wide awake now,&#8221; she said. &#8220;There&#8217;s no time to dream, no time to sleep.&#8221;</p><p>Orozco said that, while the rest of America was preparing for cookouts on Labor Day weekend, the recipients of DACA are scrambling to make preparations in case the White House ends the program. Orozco said that she&#8217;s hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.</p><p>And part of that preparation includes preparation for a long legal fight.</p><p>&#8220;Get used to us, 45,&#8221; Orozco said, speaking directly to President Trump, the country&#8217;s 45th president. &#8220;Because we&#8217;re not going away.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Demonstrators who gathered for Action Together NEPA&#8217;s rally to drum up support for DACA unfurl an American flag and sing &#8216;God Bless America&#8217; on Sunday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_DACA-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Demonstrators who gathered for Action Together NEPA&#8217;s rally to drum up support for DACA unfurl an American flag and sing &#8216;God Bless America&#8217; on Sunday. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Patrick Kernan</p><p>pkernan@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Patrick Kernan at 570-991-6119 or on Twitter @PatKernan</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Demonstrators gather on Public Square to rally behind DACA program