CA 4th Graders Unite to Bring DREAMer Classmate Home

By Diana Bohn, Berkeley Daily Planet

Rodrigo was a happy nine-year-old fourth grader at Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, where he lived since he was two years old. On January 10, 2013, Rodrigo and his parents, Reyna Diaz Mayida and Javier Ponce Guzman, returning from a trip to Mexico, were detained at the border in Houston, Texas. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities discovered that the father’s visa as well as the visas of Rodrigo and his mother had expired, so the entire family was denied entrance to the U.S. The family was told that they could not re-apply for a visa for five years.

In Berkeley, Rodrigo’s classmates are determined to bring him home. Five of them want to go to Washington D.C. to testify in front of the Senate and Congress to ask for their classmate’s right to return to Berkeley. They are studying the struggles of Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks for justice and believe today is their moment to battle for a cause they believe is part of our democracy.

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