FLORIDA CITY, Fla. – As President Barack Obama announced his executive order, Claudia Gonzalez took notes.
Obama had good news for her and an estimated four million parents nationwide. She learned Thursday night that it was likely that she was not going to have to be separated from her 9-year-old son, as she had feared. He was born in South Florida.
"I'm a single mom. I have been here for more than five years, I pay taxes and my son was born here," Gonzalez, 35, said in Spanish. "I qualify for this, but it's still hard to believe it, because everything I have done has failed."
She said she tried not to get too excited, while she listened to the prime-time address. Not only does this quasi-legal status affect her, as an undocumented migrant, but it also affects many farm workers that rely on her for information at the Farmworker Association of Florida in Florida City.
"None of them [undocumented farm workers] speak English and some of them don't speak Spanish, because they speak native dialects," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez was born in Guatemala, and is a citizen of El Salvador. She arrived to the U.S. in 1995 with a tourist visa that expired. Her mom is from El Salvador and her dad is from Guatemala.
As Obama spoke, she was also helping an undocumented man from Guatemala, who was in crutches. He was injured at work in Homestead and needed a photo identification.
Members of the Farmworkers Association of Florida pay a $15 annual fee, and get a membership card, which has a picture and is accepted as identification in many places in Homestead and Florida City.
For the man Gonzalez was helping, the identification would be accepted at the doctor's office. The undocumented man did not speak English, so Gonzalez tried to explain what Obama was saying, as she took notes.
"He said he will continue deporting criminals," Gonzalez said.
Another undocumented man from Guatemala, who was watching next to them at the community center, was fearful of Obama's mention of deportation. He said the immigration raids have increased in Florida City and Homestead since Obama took office.
"Don't you see, he thinks you and I are criminals, because we crossed the border, so we are in his eyes criminals even though we are just hard workers," the man said in Spanish. "And he deports families, we know he does."
Obama's executive order had different reactions across South Florida. While immigration activists saw it as progress, Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz Balart were among the critics who said Obama overstepped his executive power. The Cuban legislators said in a statement that they support a bipartisan legislative solution with lasting change to the nation's immigration system.
Immigration attorneys in South Florida said they were eager to read the 33-page Justice Department memo explaining the action's legal foundation. The White House also released a letter signed by 10 of the U.S. top legal and constitutional scholars asserting that the policy is "lawful" and with executive power.
"It's not the solution we need, but it's a historic day," Gonzalez said.
Obama is not the first. President Ronald Reagan made history when he signed a bill that gave amnesty to three million undocumented migrants in 1986. George H. W. Bush granted 1.5 million undocumented a chance to get work permits in 1990.
At the community center in Florida City, the undocumented man in crutches held a new mint green laminated plastic card. It had his picture and signature.
"We are not criminals. We are not illegal -- right? We are undocumented," the man said, while looking to Gonzalez for approval.
Obama's order does not apply to the injured worker, who doesn't have children who were born in the U.S. He has a passport from Guatemala and has been here for less than five years. He didn't think it would. He had not come to the community center to watch Obama.
He was there for the Farmworker Association of Florida identification.
"This will work," he said in Spanish. He paid his $15 in cash for the temporary solution and thanked Gonzalez for her help.
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