WASHINGTON, DC – Today, FWD.us released an ad highlighting Esmeralda Tovar-Contreras, a Dreamer and mother to a U.S. citizen, as part of a nationwide six-figure digital advertising campaign featuring the stories of Dreamers from across the country. Esmeralda is a mother, nursing student, and fiancé of a U.S. Army soldier who will be deployed overseas next year. Esmeralda, age 21, has lived in Kansas since moving to the United States as a 2-year-old child. Without the Dream Act, she could be deported to a country she has no memory of, and will be separated from her baby daughter and her fiancé.
The ad buy comes as Congress is considering a year-end government funding deal, which could include funding for immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States. If protections for Dreamers are not passed before Congress heads home for the holidays, those funds will be used to deport Dreamers who have already lost their work authorization and deportation protections since President Trump eliminated the DACA program in September.
Earlier this month, FWD launched a series of video ads featuring Dreamers who are waiting anxiously for lawmakers to pass a permanent legislative solution that would prevent them from being fired from their jobs, ripped from their families, and deported from the country they call home. Stories highlighted include:
- Gloria Rinconi, a medical assistant at Texas Presbyterian Hospital who came to the U.S. as a one-year-old.
- Maria Torres, a mechanical engineering student at Washington State University.
- Irving Calderon, an IT business analyst at General Motors who moved to Texas as a seven-month-old baby.
- Nathali Bertran, a mechanical engineer at Honda and co-founder of DACA Time, a non-profit software start-up that serves immigrants.
If Congress fails to pass and fully implement a permanent legislative solution byMarch 5, approximately 1,700 Dreamers will lose their jobs every single business day between March 6 and November 6 of 2018. Nearly 800,000 individuals who are currently employed and contributing as productive members of the American workforce would lose their work authorization and could be fired over the course of two years.
