MIAMI – While their fellow college students recovered from the night’s revelry, four South Floridians celebrated the New Year with a more active – and activist – approach.
The group set out Friday to begin a 1,500 mile (2,400 kilometer) journey they are calling the “Trail of Dreams,” from Miami’s historic Freedom Tower to Washington, D.C. The goal is to raise support for legislation that would include a path to citizenship for eligible illegal immigrants.
The four, all immigrants themselves, plan to walk the entire distance, no matter the weather. They expect students and other supporters to join them along the way and plan to arrive in the capital May 1, which has become a day of immigrant rights rallies in recent years.
All are top students at local colleges and campus leaders. Some are now here legally, some are not. All say they are willing to take the risks that come with bringing attention to the plight of students who, like themselves, were brought to the U.S. as children and are now here illegally.
“I’m tired of coming back to school each semester and hearing about another friend who was picked up and deported,” Juan Rodriguez told a group of supporters during a recent gathering.
Rodriguez, president of the student government at Miami Dade College’s InterAmerican Campus, and the others say they were inspired by the migrant farm workers who walked the length of California in the 1970s, and by the civil rights marches of the 1960s.
On a recent morning this past December, the group led a practice walk under pelting rain from downtown to a church in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Also in attendance was a group of immigrants from the farm community of Homestead, south of Miami, which planned to begin a fast to bring attention to immigration reform.
