Illegal immigrants hail policy shift, but caution tempers their joy

For Julio Salgado and many others, the limbo of being an illegal immigrant — the fear of deportation, the hiding in plain sight, the uncertainties of the underground economy — appeared to vanish abruptly Friday.

“We can exist now in the eyes of the country,” said Salgado, 28, a Berkeley artist who got a degree from Cal State Long Beach two years ago but said his status as an undocumented immigrant has forced him to scrape together off-the-books jobs as an illustrator and fast-food worker.

“I’ve always wanted to do illustrations for Spin magazine or Rolling Stone. Maybe now I can openly do that,” said Salgado, whose family came to California from Mexico when he was 11 and overstayed their visa because his little sister needed a kidney transplant. “The fact that we have an option that we didn’t before, it’s priceless.”

While many cheered the Obama administration’s announcement Friday that a class of young illegal immigrants would be allowed to stay and apply for work permits, some saw it as the political gamesmanship of a president fighting for a second term. And some said it felt too soon to let down their guard.

Salgado pointed to the White House announcement last year that it would use prosecutorial discretion to grant relief to some illegal immigrants. Yet “every day on my Facebook wall I was looking at all these deportations that were happening,” Salgado said.

“We don’t want to be used like little political game pieces just to get a vote,” he said.

But Friday’s news still felt like a historic victory, considering that nearly two decades ago Californians passed Proposition 187, which, had it survived a court challenge, would have denied state benefits and a public education to illegal immigrants.

Jamie Kim, 20, an undocumented student who will be majoring in international studies at a University of California school this year, said she woke up to the news Friday morning and was ecstatic. “I waited for it for so long that it’s kind of surreal,” she said. “It opens so many doors.”

But it wasn’t long before anxieties took hold, said Kim, whose parents brought her to the United States from South Korea 10 years ago. Will the order be revoked if Mitt Romney, with his aggressive deportation rhetoric, becomes president?

“I’m so nervous about that. I don’t know what to feel,” said Kim, who is considering joining the Army or Air Force. “I’m just going to go on like it’s a normal day, and when it really happens, I’m going to be celebrating.... If I do get the work permit, it will mean the world to me.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that the administration would not deport young immigrants who came to the U.S. before age 16 and are not yet 30, provided they meet certain criteria, such as the lack of a serious criminal record.

Maria Gomez, 27, graduated last year from UCLA with a master’s in architecture but lacks legal status and has struggled to find work. For years, she has advocated for Dream Act legislation that would create a path to citizenship for immigrants like her who arrived in the U.S. as children.

Having seen it fail in Congress, however, she had grown pessimistic about its chances of passing any time soon.

“This is amazing,” she said of Friday’s news. “Now all of our lives are changed completely.”

John R. Perry, an Encino immigration attorney, said early Friday that his phone had started ringing with questions from clients. “They’re asking, ‘Do I qualify? What documents do I need?’ Probably all of them will ask, ‘Is it safe?’”

Perry’s response is that another president could revoke the policy change.

But “I’m certainly not going to tell someone to live in the shadows when they have complete protection in front of them,” Perry said. “If there were a Romney administration that made such a drastic and punitive move as to start deporting people who had been identified by this executive order, I think there would be an uproar.”

Leslye Osegueda, 21, of Westwood, said she has been in the U.S. illegally since she was 5 and is graduating from UCLA with a degree in political science. Because of her status, she didn’t know what she would do after graduation.

She said she had heard rumors about a big announcement and checked the Internet at 6:30 Friday morning. The news left her in disbelief. “This is real,” she said to herself. “This is finally happening.”

Like many, she believes it’s a political move by Obama to draw Latino votes, but she thinks Dream Act advocates played a role in making it happen. Now she is speaking confidently of attending law school.

“I am scared of the backlash from anti-immigrant groups,” Osegueda said. “But we’re ready to face them. We’re ready to tell them we’re here to do good, to start new businesses, to support the economy. This is our home, and that’s why we’re fighting.”

More than 170 students and Dream Act supporters rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Friday to voice their support for President Obama’s decision. Carrying signs reading “Stop tearing families apart” and “Obama, you can’t court and deport us,” students formed a human chain to block the entrance to the southbound 101 Freeway at Los Angeles and Aliso streets.

Another line of students sat outside a federal office building.

Christian Lira, 22, was born in Nogales, Mexico. He came to the U.S. when he was 10 years old. “I’m happy for administration relief, but that’s just the beginning,” said Lira, who wants to see the entire Dream Act passed.

“Undocumented! Unafraid!” students chanted.

Some demonstrators said they viewed the announcement as a perfect opportunity to gain momentum. “This is policy,” said Dulce Matuz, 27, a rally organizer who attended college in Arizona and has a degree in electrical engineering. “We want this to be a law. We need a permanent solution.”

After the rally, one of the participants, Luis Ojeda, 22, said the issue was not resolved.

“We’re still going to maintain pressure,” said Ojeda, who came from Fresno to participate.

Ojeda left Colima, Mexico when he was 4. He graduated from Cal State Fresno this year, majoring in political science. Until Friday, he had been considering leaving the country to work.

“It’s really exciting. It’s something that we’ve been waiting for. All of our hard work is paying off,” he said.

Another demonstrator, Rosa Salamanca, 23, said she moved to the U.S. from San Miguel, El Salvador, when she was 7 to be with her parents, who are also undocumented. The announcement brought out mixed feelings.

“I might be able to get a work permit, but my parents can’t,” she said, adding that “it’s a victory, but we need to keep on fighting for our families and everybody as a whole.”

The announcement was bittersweet for Patricia Vazquez, 48, a housekeeper who has two children in college who are expected to qualify under the terms of Obama’s order. That is the good news. “I want to make a giant banner and put [it] over the freeway for everyone to see, saying, ‘Thank you, Obama.’”

But her third and eldest daughter just turned 30. She will not qualify, even though she attended college and runs her own business.

“I will cry with her of sadness,” said Vazquez, an Anaheim resident. “And I will cry with my other two children of joy.”

christopher.goffard@latimes.com

esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com

melissa.leu@latimes.com

Times staff writers Paloma Esquivel, Matt Stevens and Corina Knoll contributed to this report.