Growing up, Daniela Donoso says one emotion haunted her younger years: fear.
Born in Ecuador, she and her family came to the United States when she was just 6 months old. Her father traveled to the States on a worker’s visa, while she, her mother and her two older brothers came to the U.S. on travelers’ visas. They settled in Miami.
Donoso’s uncle petitioned for her family to become U.S. citizens, a lengthy and arduous process which can take between 10 and 15 years.
Donoso and her family were approved in 2004, but Donoso said her family had to return to Ecuador to scan their passports.
“At a certain point when you overstay your visa for more than six months, you get a 10-year ban period,” she told Sunshine State News.
Donoso, still a child, was too young to understand her legal status. She didn’t know she was an undocumented immigrant until she was 13 years old.
“My parents sat [my brothers and I] down and said ‘Hey, you might not be able to go college,’” she recalls.
But Donoso didn’t feel any different from her peers. Growing up in Miami, a city thriving with Hispanics, socializing with people similar to her was easy -- most of her friends spoke “Spanglish” and seemed to have common backgrounds.
It wasn’t until Donoso and her family moved to Jacksonville that she began to notice the world around her wasn’t like Miami.
“I had never seen so many white blonde people in one place at the same time,” she said.
Just as she was unfamiliar with culture outside of the Hispanic world, others, too, misperceived Donoso’s culture.
“People assumed that because I spoke Spanish I was Mexican,” she explained.
But Donoso said she was often quiet about her immigration status, because it was typically considered a taboo topic.
Donoso echoes the same word several times in her interview: fear.
“It wasn’t something that you shared with other people because of fear,” she said, explaining that some undocumented children are afraid of talking about their legal status due to worries someone will tell the feds and they’ll be deported.
Donoso is a senior at Florida State University and currently participates in the Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals (DACA). DACA is an immigration policy started under the Obama administration in 2012. It allows undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before June 2007 and their 16th birthday to receive a two-year work permit. DACA recipients are also exempted from deportation.
Donoso’s story isn’t uncommon. Many immigrants in Florida are just like her, and they say life could get a lot more difficult -- and much scarier -- if new legislation passes through the Florida Legislature this year.
Several bills cracking down on immigration are currently making their way through the Capitol. One measure, HB 675, would prohibit “sanctuary cities” and would penalize cities, counties and sheriffs' offices that don’t enforce federal immigration laws. Seven local governments currently have policies which are more lax toward immigrants, a gesture some say is a more “compassionate” stance toward immigrants.
Officials who don’t comply with the law could be fined up to $5,000 a day.
Immigrant groups have rallied against the legislation, saying the bill would take immigrants who are productive members of the community and put them in jail.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Larry Metz, R-Yalaha, says the bill is simply about the rule of law.
“It’s not about any community or specific group of people going to be harmed,” he recently said. “We are upholding the rule of law as a fundamental principle of our republican form of government.”
The bill passed through a House committee Thursday.
For immigrants like Donoso and many others like her, the legislation simply adds to the fear she already feels as an undocumented immigrant. She told Sunshine State News immigration officials will sometimes pose as DirectTV or cable companies to capture undocumented immigrants.
“It’s hard because I think about my parents,” she said. “It’s just very scary.”
But immigrants have been able to find a voice in organizations and groups full of others fighting back against the legislation they say will harm those who contribute a great deal of positivity to Florida and its economy.
For Donoso, joining others in the fight against these laws helps, even if just a little bit.
“Being able to educate and talk to people and raise awareness on campus ... has been encouraging,” she told SSN. “But it is still a scary thought there are lawmakers trying to put more barriers to an already growing fear [in the immigrant community.]”
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
