2025News

The dream faces reality, and woman returns to the DR voluntarily

The headlines said, “Dominican woman self-deports in fear of new immigration policies of USA.” What the body of the article revealed was a typical story of a person attracted to the mythical ‘streets-of-gold’ idea of the United States. The woman, identified as Leandra Rojas, talked to television reporters for the Channel 41 Univision in New York City. She said that she had decided to voluntarily return to the Dominican Republic after hearing about the new migration policies being announced by the Trump administration.

Although the current efforts of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel (ICE) are focused on persons with criminal histories and those who are under deportation orders, it has been noted that there are what is being called “collateral detainees” or persons with irregular immigration status that was located along with the primary person of interest, the criminal or person under an order of deportation. The lady was quite clear in her statements to the television reporters. She said that things were not like people said and there was no money laying around or growing on trees.

With the new policies regarding illegal immigration, Rojas said she was afraid to walk the streets of Brooklyn since she had no papers and was in the country illegally. She entered the United States through Mexico, and her tale of that experience was moving, since she had been kidnapped at one point, along with her young son. She said that the entire trip that ended in Brooklyn cost her “half a million pesos.” (Two years ago, this was around US$10,000).

At the end of the interview, Rojas said that she had obtained papers for her child, updated her passport and bought the tickets to return to the Dominican Republic. “The American dream is not like they painted it. Here you have to work hard….” were her final words.

Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre

3 February 2025