Cyntia Medrano is making the 700-mile journey to Washington, D.C., in the hopes that her story will be heard.
The 13-year-old from Palatine is joining her mother, Maria del Carmen Santana, on a four-day trip with Dreams Across America in an effort to give a face to the immigration debate.
The two are part of a national tour campaigning for immigration reform that started in Los Angeles and is making its way by train to Washington.
The 15 “dreamers” from Chicago will join those from other cities in a rally Tuesday. They also will be joining busloads of teenagers championing the rights of undocumented immigrant students.
Medrano and Santana started their journey Sunday at Mision San Juan Diego Catholic Church in Arlington Heights at a 12:30 p.m. Mass. There, Medrano explained her goal to the parishioners.
“My dad brought me here because he wanted a better future for me,” she said after the Mass. “On Father’s Day, I wanted to return the favor.”
Vigils similar to the one in the Arlington Heights church took place across Chicago and the suburbs before various groups met at Union Station for a 7 p.m. train to Washington, D.C.
The campaign passing through Chicago and the suburbs comes as immigration reform languishes in Congress.
President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada pledged Friday to work to pass a comprehensive bill. If approved, the measure would make the biggest changes to immigration law in more than 20 years.
As currently proposed, the bill would allow immigrants who lived and worked here illegally before Jan. 1, 2007, to apply for citizenship, a process that would take 13 years and cost $5,000 in fines.
Temporary workers could apply for a two-year visa and then leave for a year. Their relatives could join them only if they come with medical insurance and a living wage. Such programs would kick into effect only after meeting security “triggers” such as tighter border security and enforcement.
“There’s still a flicker in the flame in D.C. that some kind of immigration reform will happen this year,” said Tim Bell of the Chicago Worker’s Collaborative. “Hopefully, this will keep that flame burning.”
However, Bell said on Sunday that the trip isn’t specifically in support of the bill.
“It’s to let senators of power know that immigrants are human beings,” he said.
So Medrano wants her 13-year-old story heard by those in power. She wants to make it clear that she’s heavily involved at Sundling School in Palatine.
She wants the senators to know that her mother was assaulted while in Mexico and moved the family to America when Medrano was 6 to join her husband and to find safer ground.
Mostly, Medrano wants to let those in Washington, D.C., know that she has a dream of going to college and embarking on a career.
“We all have dreams, we all have hopes for our future,” Santana said in Spanish, translated through her daughter Sunday. “I hope for my daughter to do something for herself and for others.”