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October 19, 2023 25 mins

DACA’s survival is a big deal for people who make your street food like tacos, but it's also good for the American economy. Whether it’s taqueros or nurses, teachers, first responders, lawyers and so many others, DACA recipients contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to our economy. So yeah, this episode isn’t just about tacos. It’s about the money, baby. 

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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Last episode, we heard from taco truck owner Rollodo faux Barientho,
so I interviewed the dey Daca was defibrillated back to life.
The weight of its return didn't really hit me until
I spoke to him. I recorded his raw feelings on
that day after eating some tacos. This was how he
felt back then.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Today, like it's a big victory, but I feel like
more of a sense of urgency that because it is,
it is like a huge deal. There needs there needs
to be more urgency of the matter and you know,
more action from everyone's part so that it doesn't get
brush of the rugs, like the things that need to
be done.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
That was three years ago now and a lot has
changed since then. We wanted to check in with Rollard
Fox and see see how he's feeling these days. So
our team reached out to him and played rodolin Fo
the recording of his voice from the day Daca was revived.
This was his reaction.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Actually, it feels empowering, which is one of the changes
that I think I've developed as of the last couple
of years. I personally had a sense of frustration, like
deep frustration that was feeling me when I was having
that interview with Eric. So aside from the sadness, aside
from the fear and the stress, I do think that

(01:34):
there is like a degree of frustration that comes from
feeling unvalued that I don't know. To me, it sounded
like I was very direct and I felt like I
was certain of what I was saying. The idea that
I felt empowered, because that's how I feel right now
listening to it.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
It warms my heart that his raw thoughts and emotions
made him feel empowered and he still feels that way
today in spite of uncertainty, because in his words, I
can hear hundreds of thousands of others just like him.
Rollotofol is one of many Doaga folks that's built this
country up. Doca's survival is a big deal for people

(02:16):
like Rolodo fol but also for the American economy. Whether
it's takettos or nurses, teachers, first responders, lawyers, and so
many others. DOCTA recipients contribute billions of dollars to our economy.
That's billions with a beat. So yeah, this episode isn't

(02:37):
just about tacos. It's about the money, Baby America.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Lindo I'm Patti Rodriguez. This is Out of the Shadows,
a podcast about America's tangled history of immigration. Last season,
we tackled Ronald Reagan's nineteen eighty six Amnesty Act. This season,
we're tracing the agents of DAKA, or Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals, a contentious executive order to protect undocumented young

(03:07):
people from being.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Deported issued by former President Barack Obama in twenty twelve.
DACA was meant to be a temporary stop gap on
a broken immigration system. It was like putting a bucket
under a leaky roof, But with multiple Supreme Court challenges
and looming presidential elections, the roof feels like it may
collapse at any moment, impacting the US economy and American

(03:31):
culture as we know it. Meanwhile, the future of millions
of lives hangs in the balance.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
Welcome to Out of the Shadows, Dreamers.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
So the Supreme Court ruled that DACAS here to stay,
not out of the goodness of its heart, but because
Trump's administration didn't follow protocol.

Speaker 6 (04:07):
Our lawsuit was about how when the government tried to
end DACA, they didn't do it the right way.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
That's Luis Cortes Romero, the lawyer with daca's status that
defended the program in the courts.

Speaker 6 (04:22):
We thought President Trump was just going to come out
and say, well, fine, I'm going to end it the
right way. But the thing is that President Trump did
not want to do that. He knew that it would
cost him politically.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
One theme that came up during the case was the
economic concern of ending the program permanently. CEOs of companies
like Apples sent the Supreme Court amicus briefs, or official
statements on behalf of the dreamers, warning that ending DACA
would have a negative impact on the economy.

Speaker 6 (04:53):
One of the things that is allowed at the Supreme
Court is these things called amicus briefs. Essentially, it reports
be filed for people who aren't involved with the case
but want to say something about it. And so Fortune
five hundred companies got together and collectively signed on to
a brief. I'm talking about like Airbnb, Yahoo, like a

(05:13):
lot of them. There's like a whole list of them
saying if DACA ends, like, let us tell you about
the economic impact that's going to have of us, Because
not only do we have DOCTA recipients in our workforce,
but we also serve a lot of doctor recipients, and
it's part of our economic ecosystem. And so it's going
to be a multi billion dollar cost if DACA ends,
especially if it ends suddenly, and so that weighed on

(05:37):
the Justice's mind for sure. Tim Cook and Apple both
independently wrote to the Supreme Court in the Namica Is
Brief saying, Hey, this is going to impact Apple in
a really big way. And what I tripped out on
was it was kind of it's going to tribute the
American Medical Association. This is twenty nineteen. In late twenty nineteen,
they wrote an amicus brief to the Court and they

(05:57):
talked about how a notable portion of its medical association nurses, doctors,
just medical professionals, were doct recipients and serve under developed communities.
And in their amicus brief in late twenty nineteen, they mentioned, like,
if there just so happened to be some sort of
pandemic and all of our doctor recipients like we're no
longer allowed to work, we would be at a catastrophic situation.

(06:22):
And it's kind of trippy because a few months later
than a pandemic that no one knew was coming, like
ended up coming.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
It was like some sort of prophecy came true when
COVID hit the US in twenty twenty. DOCCA recipients were
invaluable to our survival. They put their lives at risk
for the health of others. The Center for American Progress
estimated that nearly a quarter million DOCTA recipients were working

(06:52):
jobs at the forefront of coronavirus. They feed us, teach us,
care for us, and protect us. But to put it
in terms conservatives understand, they are also a vital part
of our economy.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
We'll be right back after the break.

Speaker 7 (07:40):
My name is Alexandre Padilla, and I'm a professor of
economics and the chair of the economics department at Metropolitan
State Chairs Still of Denver.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
We reached out to Professor Badia to help us understand
the economics surrounding DACA recipients, and he says there's a
lot of data and studies on it.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
The overall result from a broader perspective is that these
human beings that cross the border and come to the
US or to quote unquote rich country or developed countries,
become far more productive.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Badia himself is an immigrant and that may or may
not impact his views on a micro level, but he
says that data paints a clear picture from a macro level.

Speaker 7 (08:29):
So from a bigger viewpoint, bigger picture of your point,
the answer is that immigration right is seen as a
net benefits to the economy, to the society because people
come with talent, They bring their talent and they can
exercise their talent in a more productive way. So when

(08:52):
we think about immigration, it brings more productivity, more entrepreneurship,
more new businesses, more diverse city in term of products
and services. With more diversity of the population comes also
the ability to satisfy more diverse tastes and preferences.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Though the anti immigration rhetoric might say otherwise, undocumented immigrants
are hard contributors to the economy. That's especially true of dreamers.

Speaker 7 (09:23):
Undocumented immigrants that are hard contributors to the economy. Whether
it's in term of working for businesses and industry that
people don't want to work because wages at the law,
or in term of paying taxes. Most people tend to
forget is that DARKA recipients pay a lot of taxes

(09:43):
right The pay property taxes, the pay sales taxes, they
pay taxes on their income, and if you eliminate DAKA,
they are no longer going to earn as higher wages
than they would be if they were working former economy,
which means they will pay less taxes on the income,
which means the governments, the local governments will have less

(10:06):
tax revenues to do things that benefit to all citizens
in a given state or given locality, or given county
or district.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Docca's contributions benefit everyone in the country, even those that
tried to end it, or we were making the show,
we had this idea, maybe optimistically, that DAKA was too
big to fail. We asked Professor Padiel what he thought
of that theory, and he didn't immediately laugh in our faces,

(10:38):
which is good.

Speaker 7 (10:39):
I think, to some extent, your analogies is not completely incorrect.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Okay, he laughed a little. He sees it a little differently.

Speaker 7 (10:52):
Good analogies like, hey, if you live in it daka,
you are depriving the US economists of talent. You are
depriving people from exercising in an efficient productive way their talent. Right, So,
and I think it's an important economic thing we need

(11:15):
to remember.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
But of course it's bigger than that. We can break
down what they contribute in raw data, and maybe people
get that, but they can still be salty about darker
recipients having come here in the first place. But the
answers people are less inclined to understand the factors that
cause immigrants to leave in the first place.

Speaker 7 (11:37):
When you are at that cab beneficiary, your parents took
huge risk, and they can both huge risk because they
wanted the better life of their children. They went to
escape a life of extreme poverty or like in most
cases that we tend to forget, they can because they

(11:58):
were escaping extreme violes. They most they'll come from country
that are prone to huge balance because the war on
drugs and that you have drug hotels. So those parents
decided to have a better life of your children, so
they took those sutress one thing that you teach your
children when you do that, you teach them to become entrepreneurs.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Whether you get why people fled their countries for a
better life or not, the numbers don't lie. But the
ess dakas economic benefits on the US economy were pretty immediate, and.

Speaker 7 (12:34):
I was looking at more data from another institute on
taxation economic policy, but talk about is about one point
three million in twenty eighteen. Young and documented immigrants enroll
immediately legible and they contribute at the state level and
state and local taxes to one point seven billion per year.

(12:56):
And the idea that immigrants comes to us to take
away things that belonged to you or to capture go
to get government paycheck, it just knows true.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
When Doltafoo Barrientos first opened his Loncetta Gracia signor nobody
really showed up. That's because he parked his truck in
the Pacific Palisades, an affluent part of LA that's not
really known for his taco scene. But Olonfo had an
idea to get people interested. He started giving out free
samples of Vidria, the tender stewed beef cooked with spices.

(13:33):
These days, most people have heard of Dia. It's become
somewhat of a household name at most dacadias say. You
can even find it at Boyle Loco or Disneyland. But
back in twenty thirteen, Vidia wasn't popping off like that
in the streets, especially the suburban ass Pacific Palisades.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
When I first open a shop, I started doing Beria,
which was like not known anywhere, and nobody wanted to
take my viria. So I would go out with samples
because in my previous job, you know, that's kind of
like one of our one of our go to approaches
to getting people to understand and try the offerings. So

(14:14):
I was like, you know, I'm gonna go out to
provide some samples and and let people know what this is.
And nobody would even take my samples of viria. So
it was very it was very difficult to gain the
trust of the community. And I think that also has
to do with it, you know, like I guess like
there is a degree of trust that I mean not

(14:35):
only were food trucks not that accepted at that time,
but also you know, with any with any kind of establishment,
you also have to develop that trust from your clients.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
But we're living in an entirely different part of the
da Versit these days, the Pacific Palisades has embraced Rolo
Fos truck. His taco truck is part of the community now.

Speaker 8 (15:03):
It's so trippy that.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
At one point, when it started the business ten years ago,
people didn't want some people didn't want me in the Palisades,
and not more than a week ago, two young Palsaates locals.
They live in the Palisades, and two of them approached
me to help them give him advice on how to

(15:27):
start their own pop up. I was extremely honored by
the fact that they thought of me as a resource,
and I was also very happy for them because it
was like, not only are they embracing my culture, which is,
you know, beyond Mexican food, it's a culture of great
it's a culture of entrepreneurship, it's a culture of creating something.

(15:53):
So that it showed me that they saw something in
what I was doing that they thought was worth than
trying themselves. So I let them borrow my catering equipment
and now they're setting up shopping the palasts, they're doing burgers.
So I feel like I've made a lot of good contributions.

(16:15):
The fact that someone sees that, you know, it's it's
better than any like review, any credit could give me.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
People like Reloveful are what makes this country great. But
he thinks most Americans know that already.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
I don't think this country doesn't want me because or
I don't feel comfortable saying this country doesn't want me
or want us. Dhaka recipients because I think my business
itself is evidence of the support and love that many
American citizens have for us. Otherwise I wouldn't I don't

(16:57):
think I would be here. I'm very vocal about who
I am and like, and you know, my support for
the immigrant community. So I feel like, if you know,
people didn't the people in this country didn't want me,
then you know my business would not be here. But
I do think politicians or the people in power are

(17:21):
the ones who you know, are making it very difficult.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
For us, Lutiful says, politicians are leaning into stereotypes and
fear mongering.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
You often hear about, you know, the the negative descriptions
of immigrants. You know, they say that we come here without,
we don't pay taxes, we come here to steal jobs,
we come here to take from this country. But you know,
as I was thinking about this interview today, I was
I was reflecting, you know, what job have I taken?

(17:57):
I haven't taken a single job. Instead, I've created a job.
What have I taken financially from this country?

Speaker 8 (18:04):
Instead?

Speaker 3 (18:05):
I give continuously. I'm sure there's a record that the
government have of the funds that Diress collects for my
business and for my personal taxes. You know, at this point,
I am paying property tax, I am providing this country
with financial wealth, and I am certain that the rest

(18:28):
of my data peers are doing the same as so
many other immigrants. So one of the changes that has
happened as far as my headspace in terms of my
legal status is that I no longer feel like I'm
asking the government for any favors. If anything, I want

(18:49):
the government to recognize how much I am worth and
to really acknowledge everything that we bring and we have
been given to this country.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Stay with us, out of the shadows. We'll be back
after the break.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
So we all know how things went down because we
lived it, but let's recap it for the future generations.
At the end of twenty twenty, Trump loses the election
and Joe Biden becomes the forty sixth President of the
United States. And even though Biden was Obama's vice president

(19:58):
and part of the administration that issue DAKA in the
first place, Louis does see a difference between Biden's presidency
and Obama's.

Speaker 6 (20:09):
A lot of people who were following the immigrant right
stuff who maybe wouldn't have otherwise followed it. During the
Trump administration, I think believed now that Biden is president,
things are fine now, right, And so what we know
about the dangerous thing about President Biden's administration is that
it's not as immigrant friendly as people think it is.
And he he in his administration know how to govern.

(20:32):
They know how to do things the right way, unlike
President Trump, who just kind of was doing things the
wrong way and got stopped every way along the way.
So like knows how to follow a procedure. So it's
difficult to attack, right, and so that's what I mean,
the right, right, right. But there's also this kind of
thought that amongst the states that Biden is very soft
in immigration. The statistics would say otherwise, but there's this

(20:54):
there's this idea that he's kind of being soft on immigration.
So states are taking it upon themselves to pass state
based legislation to really kind of punish immigrants or deter
them from being there or or whatever. Just a lot
of kind of hardline anti immigrant behavior. Florida is a
great example of that.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
The truth is Biden's administration hasn't made major moves on
immigration or DACA, so docca's fate still lies in the courts.
Of course, some people like Pullar serprise winning journalists Maria
in no Josa, feel that the aftermath of Trump's fear
mongering is still having an impact.

Speaker 9 (21:36):
My question is, kipaso nos mado, the apparatus, the immigration,
detention and deportation industrial complex really took control, and I'm sorry,
scared the shit out of us, out of many of us,
and that is a human reaction, that is true. I

(22:00):
have asked myself, dundee de las protestas de las manifestas,
juni is burghora out. I see the inhumanity that we're
facing is so intense.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
But Mohammed mo Abdollahi, one of the dreamers who fought
to make Dhaka happen, thinks the lack of current activism
is to blame for the inaction.

Speaker 8 (22:25):
I think my overall assessment of how things stand right
now with immigrant rights and things like that is just
like immigrant rights advocates are complete cowards, and there's like
this complete lack of like wherewithal of understanding their own
power and what is possible for the community, and that

(22:47):
everything that Biden is doing is really regressing even to
prior to the even to like the early stages of
the Obama administration, where there's advocates that feel like the
things that we fought for in twenty ten, winning stay
of removals, discretion types of things for people, they find

(23:08):
that far fetched these days within the Biden administration, and
a lot of people don't realize that those policies were
not just like those victories were not just handed out
by the Obama administration willingly. It was a grueling battle.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
Moe is right about one thing. The immigrants' rights movement
of today is not the same as it was eleven
years ago, but it hasn't gone away. It's just gone viral.

Speaker 10 (23:38):
When TikTok came around during the pandemic, I was like, Okay,
I'm going to start talking about DACA. And that was
the first video that I made because it was around
the time that Doc go into the Supreme Court. So
I made a TikTok video, it went viral. I continued
doing that and then obviously expanded onto different areas of
immigration and ever since then, it's just been a huge

(24:02):
platform that I've been able to use for this purpose.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Almost every form of social media has been a tool
for dreamers. And on the next episode of Out of
the shadows. We're going to break down how that has evolved,
for better or for worse. Out of the Shadows. Dreamers

(24:32):
is a Semelo production in partnership with Iheartsmikudura podcast Network.
It's created, posted, and executive produced by me, Patti Rodriguez
and Eric Galindo. This show is written by Sessa Hernandez
and executive produced by Jaselle Vancis. Our supervising producer is
Arlene Santana. It's produced and edited by Brianna Flores. Our

(24:54):
associate producer is Claudia Marti Gorena down design, mixing and
mastering by Jessica Crane Chitch and a special thanks to
all our Dreamers. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and
share it. For more Micaela podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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