Dozens of young immigrants entered the United States on Thursday through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, hoping to get humanitarian visas or asylum which might allow them to reunite with their families.
This is the second group of the almost 150 immigrants that will attempt to return to the United States after being deported and taken away from their families by immigration authorities, in a protest organized by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, which started on July, 2013 and includes ports of entry in Texas and Arizona, according to Reuters.
According to the quoted source, those involved were mostly young men of 20 to 30 years of age who were raised in the United States and then sent back to Mexico.
Many of the protesters on Thursday told the news agency that during their stay in the country they were allowed to go to college thanks to the Dream Act approved by Congress in 2010, a law which protects undocumented children that were taken to the United States.
Such is the case of Ramón Dorado, a young man raised in New Mexico, who went to the port of entry wearing a mortarboard, or graduation hat.
"I want to go home. I was two weeks away from graduation from college, when Albuquerque police stopped me for a traffic offense and deported me because I have no papers," Dorado told Reuters.
Although all the people who have entered through ports of entry have been detained and started a long legal process, most of the undocumented immigrants participating in these actions say that it's a risk "worth taking", reported La Opinión.
According to the same source, Alex Aldana, organizer and member of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, told the media that so far one person from the first group that entered the US on Monday, March 10 through the San Diego port of entry has been deported again, and another one got a permit to live in the country.