14-day hunger strike ends, protest goes to Washington

Viridiana Martinez has known since the age of 12 that she wanted to work in international relations when she grew up.

It was only after she graduated high school and her friends started wondering why she wasn’t pursuing that dream in college that she told them the truth — she is an undocumented immigrant.

Admitting that taboo fact has become routine for Martinez, who emigrated from Mexico when she was 7 years old. She is no longer afraid of the police, and during her 14-day hunger strike for immigration reform that ended with a rally Monday night, Martinez continuously told the press that she is living in the U.S. illegally.

“To say it to the press, and the cops were there, was this sense of empowerment,” Martinez said of the first time she publicly announced her immigration status at a protest in 2009.

“I wasn’t afraid because I have nothing to be afraid of. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t choose to be in this situation. The truth is that there is a broken system. … This is beyond just a girl who’s undocumented and scared,” she said.

Members of the N.C. DREAM Team, Martinez, Rosario Lopez, and Loida Silva — who fell ill from dehydration and heat exhaustion Sunday night — fasted and camped out in a public park in downtown Raleigh for two weeks to draw attention to the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act.

The act would give approximately 65,000 young people like them — who came to the U.S. before the age of 16 — the opportunity to go to college or serve in the military to earn residency.

“(The DREAM Act) is a chance for us to work hard to earn our citizenship,” Martinez said Monday night to supporters.

“We’re not asking for a free ride, Sen. Hagan,” Martinez said. “We’re asking for a basic human right: access to higher education.”

Martinez, 23, and Silva, 22, could not afford college because undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for federal aid or in-state tuition.

Lopez, with the help of an anonymous donor, paid out-of-state tuition to get a degree in biology from UNC, but her status keeps her from applying to graduate school.

The hunger strikers hoped to hold an audience with U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., about sponsoring the bill but were unsuccessful.

“They have shared their stories with thousands of North Carolinians. They have brought truth to a debate full of falsehood,” said Domenic Powell, a member of the N.C. DREAM Team, of the accomplishments they had made.

In a press statement, Hagan said comprehensive immigration reform is needed.

“I am committed to achieving practical, bipartisan, comprehensive reform that will protect taxpayers and address the problem of illegal immigration at its core,” Hagan said.

But Powell said such reform could leave out people like Martinez.

“We don’t know if she believes anything should be done for the young, hard-working, high-achieving people like these three who … have become American in a very real way,” Powell said.

The difficulty in garnering support for the bill reflects how some lawmakers might not see immigration reform as a priority in an election year.

“It’s a form of amnesty for illegal aliens being pushed by unscrupulous politicians that want to use young people to create amnesty for all illegal aliens, and that’s opposed by the vast majority of American citizens,” said William Gheen, president of the Raleigh-based group Americans for Legal Immigration.

A poll released Tuesday by First Focus, a bipartisan child advocacy group, shows that 70 percent of Americans support the DREAM Act, but some polls say otherwise.

“It would … reward illegal immigration, leading to more illegal immigration to the United States,” Gheen said of the act.

Monday’s crowd was rallied to organize and go to Washington, D.C., later this month, when people from across the country will lobby and protest for the act.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.