Conn. group praises Dream Act passage

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Supporters of the Dream Act gathered at the Yale Law School to talk about the implications of the policy change.

President Obama made the announcement on Friday giving young people who are in the U.S. illegally the opportunity to stay in the country to work, serve in the military or continue their education.

Those directly affected say they have advocated hard and waited patiently for this policy change become a reality.
           
They say only now can they truly come out from the shadows of society.

For people like Carlos Castro, the Obama Administration's policy change on immigration is a dream finally realized.

Castro was just 5-years-old when his family came to the United States from Ecuador.

The now the 25-year-old graduate of Shelton High School says while classmates were getting driver's licenses and applying to colleges he was forced to keep his story a secret.

"Cause you can't really tell anybody that you're not documented, cause you're scared they might tell somebody because they might deport you, so you keep that a secret," he explained.

Castro was among a group of young people at Yale Law School as members of the group Connecticut Students for a Dream, or C4D, who met the media on Monday.

The group calls last week's announcement a "moment in history," but not a permanent solution to the immigration debate.

"This did not come out of nowhere," said Lorella Praeli. "It took years to build the pressure to design this strategy and to really push and organize people. The stories of us coming out last year and individuals coming out nationwide really created the space for us to push'

That successful push is a life-changer for people like Castro, who tells News 8 he was detained and almost deported as recently as three weeks ago.

"If you're not Indian American then are you really anything else but an immigrant? Follow your life tree, go down it, see where you come from. I'm pretty sure you're not American, you're English, Italian, Portuguese or Russian or Irish. Yeah, you're white but you're an immigrant like everybody else," Castro said.       

Of course there has already been a lot of push back from Republican lawmakers about the Obama decision's policy change.
        
One Senate leader called it "possibly illegal," in addition to a New York Congressman who says he's considering filing a lawsuit in hopes of stopping it from being implemented.