Dreamer Arrested In Capitol Protest Hails From Red Bank

RED BANK, NJ - A local resident who has been on the forefront of the Dreamers issue here, was among three state residents arrested Thursday after staging a protest inside the U.S. Capitol against the spending bill designed to keep funding the government through Dec. 22.

Osvaldo Rodriguez, 26, of Red Bank and Piash Ahamed, 27, of the Colonia section of Woodbridge Township, and a third Dreamer, Maria Concepcion Gomez Moran, were arrested and charged with crowding, obstructing or incommodity, a municipal violation after conducting sit-ins inside the Senate office building, according to activists and Capitol police.

Rodriguez, a DACA recipient, organized a rally in Red Bank last month in which 200 people participated. He did so under the auspices of a new coalition called Awaken Community. The group's initial priority is to push for Congress to pass the Dream Act of 2017 without tying it to funding for a border wall, more immigration agents or other priorities listed by President Donald Trump. The Dream Act would make DACA policy into law. Rodriguez and other Awaken members have scheduled a number of events to spread awareness of immigration issues.

Rodriguez was brought from Mexico to the U.S. as a child.

"I've lived in the United States my entire life," Rodriguez told USA Today. "I adopted its culture and made it mine."

The trio were among 50 demonstrators who dispersed through the building, demanding legislators reject the spending bill unless they also move forward on a legislative fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — all while the threat of a government shutdown over the immigration issue looms over Washington, according to a news release from the advocacy group the Seed Project.

The three went to Washington, D.C. in support of the advocacy group against the emergency stop-gap federal spending bill, which was approved Thursday night and will keep the government running through Dec. 22.

The Seed Project wanted lawmakers to reject the emergency spending bill unless legislation is reached to save the "Dreamer" program, which Trump said he would likely eliminate this spring.

The controversy stems from attempts to legislatively fix DACA, the Obama-era executive order that offered protections, work permits and driver’s licenses to young immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children. President Trump rescinded the program Sept. 5 and said the program would start phasing out March 5, 2018, leaving Congress six months to come up with a fix.

Democrats called for passing the Dream Act, which would make protections for Dreamers and possibly a path to citizenship federal law.

More than 700,000 DACA recipients live in the country, including an estimated 22,000 in New Jersey.
“The end of DACA puts me, my family and 800,000 Dreamers at risk of deportation. I will no longer stay silent - I can’t afford to stay silent about my undocumented status,” Ahamed, a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program who was born in Bangladesh, said in a statement.

“That is why I was arrested in Washington, D.C. as a volunteer for the #OurDream campaign," Ahamed said. "Like so many leaders in our nation’s history such as Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, I am taking a stand for what I believe is right.”

A DACA demonstrator from Miami. Protests and rallies have been popping up all over the country. Photograph by Lynne Sladky/Associated Press.