LA groups offer support to local DACA students

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Vowing to fight President Donald Trump's executive order to rescind DACA, immigrant advocacy groups in Los Angeles continued to pledge their support for the 800,000 program recipients whose futures are now in limbo.

"These are youth who are contributing, they are in college, they are working," said Stuart Kwoh, president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

Kwoh said the nonprofit will offer free DACA renewal workshops through September.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis applauded their efforts.

"When we talk about DACA we're talking about immigrants from all over the world," Solis said. "We have Asian Pacific Islanders, we have people from Europe. We have South Africans, people from Canada."

Iliana Perez, a DACA recipient working on her Ph.D, who has lived in California for 22 years, says she'll now have to live in fear.

"We go back to having that fear of getting deported at any time," Perez said.

The same concerns are playing out on the campus of Cal State LA, where between 800 and 1,000 students are DACA recipients. Wednesday, the university sponsored the first of several DACA forums in response to students' distress.

"I spoke with about a dozen DACA students last Thursday about the impending decision and they were weeping," said school president William Covino. "They were afraid for themselves, they were afraid for their families."

Beside the forums and access to legal assistance, the school is now committing to pay the DACA renewal fees for students who are eligible.