By La EducacionStaff | La Education | May 12, 2024 | Photo Courtesy of La Educacion | Translated by the CMSC
Karina Ruiz is already on the threshold of history. She will be the first Mexican migrant to be a senator of the Republic.
She is a “dreamer”, originally from Tlanepantla, State of Mexico, with Oaxacan roots, who is 39 years old, of which 24 she has lived in Phoenix, Arizona, she has three children and three grandchildren, she has a degree in biochemistry and a social fighter.
Postulated by Morena, it emphasizes:
“In the Senate there is no one who understands the experiences of migrants. “It is necessary to legislate with the vision of migrants.”
She was presented, along with the half dozen migrants who will reach the Mexican Legislative Branch as multi-member candidates. Five will go to the Chamber of Deputies and she will have a seat in the Upper House. They were welcomed by the president of Morena, Mario Delgado, and former Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard, coordinator of the future legislators.
Petite, with verbal fluency, in dialogue with La Educación, Ruiz, who is knowledgeable about the American way of life, reveals that she will go to Washington to dialogue with United States legislators to speak “as equals” to see how to solve problems of the “dreamers” and the more than eleven million Mexicans living in that nation in order to seek a path to legalize their immigration status.
The interviewee has been flying those flags since she arrived in the American Union. She even suspended her scientific activity in order to go to the American capital and take to the streets in defense of the rights of migrants. She is well- seasoned in those struggles.
Social Struggle
This period of her life has been a struggle against the anti-immigrant environment, against exclusive and racist legislation. In Arizona she took on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who remained in office for 24 years, and set up open-air prisons and displayed immigrants like zoo animals.
Ruiz also considers herself a survivor of Law 1070 promoted in 2008 by Republican Senator Russell Pearce to strengthen public order forces and combat “the invaders of American sovereignty,” in reference to migrants. The order was defeated in the Supreme Court, which considered that it usurped federal immigration policy.
Before Delgado and Ebrard, Ruiz was definitive:
“In Mexico, the vision of migrants has to be developed. “We are not just remittances.”
She assures that “now from this side of the border we are going to create conditions and support the agenda of Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum so that the conditions of Mexico and the migrants there improve.”
And highlights:
“We are going to achieve the transformation of the Mexican dream.”
One of her priorities is to fight for the reform of the Mexican consulates so that they reinforce their policy of protection for the Mexican migrant people and the dreamers, that is, those Mexicans who were taken to the United States when they were children and who have developed the greatest part of their families and who have completed higher education in America.
When asked about what she will do to ensure that the force of the dreamers has a presence in Mexico, she responded that they must be encouraged because there are those who truncate their professional studies due to the burdensome tuition at universities, in addition to the fact that there are very few private scholarships.
One option, she added, is for them to come to Mexico to study and have their degrees validated so that they can be used in both countries.
She was taken to the United States at the age of 15.
At the age of 15, Ruiz was taken by her parents – Virginia and Mauro, originally from Ejutla de Crespo, Oaxaca – to Uncle Sam’s lands, attracted because one of her sisters who had left a year before told them that there were job opportunities there. “They told me that we were going to work for a year, to raise money to start a small business. I have heard that from many migrants. It is the initial plan.”
And there they stayed. “Our parents were looking for a better future, they are the first dreamers,” she emphasizes.
She immediately felt the hardness of life for migrants, especially in states governed by Republicans, mostly anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican.
She attended high school and college and had three children: Jesús, 22, Joseph, 14, and John, 12. “There was no reason to return to Mexico,” she exclaimed. She managed to benefit from the DACA program and thanks to the permission they can apply for in order to leave the United States, she went to Iztapalapa, Mexico City, to see her grandmother, introduce her to her grandchildren, and where we later passed away. Her father spoke with her in her last moments of life via video call. Her father died in 2020 as a result of Covid.
Family separation, humanitarian crisis
“It is the story of migrants, we lose family members every day. Family separation is a humanitarian crisis,” she points out. And to face and resolve it “we have to continue fighting and raising our voices,” she highlights.
The only solution is immigration reform with a path to citizenship, as proposed by President López Obrador. Because of this, “we carry that agenda.”
Ruiz completed her degree in biochemistry in 2015, a degree she completed in twelve years due to her immigration status and because she was undocumented, she was asked to pay triple the tuition. This motivated her to deepen her fight, which bore fruit since now young people with two years of residence in the United States can access tuition at the state’s expense.
She proudly states that she paused her scientific career to dedicate herself to organizing the Mexican and Latino community to fight for the legalization of dreamers, their parents and migrants.
Add:
“Destiny brought me to Mexico to a noble, different and necessary fight so that Mexicans abroad are recognized.”
That is why Ruiz highlights that she does not come alone but brings the difficulties of the migrant community on her back.
Her eldest son, 22 years old, already a US citizen, will adjust her immigration status in such a way that at the end of the year she will achieve permanent residence, that is, she will finally stop being undocumented.
For now, she will reach the Senate of the Republic as a DACA beneficiary, as a dreamer.
“That’s me,” she concludes. And she says goodbye.
*DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), is a temporary program created in 2012 by then Democratic President Barack Obama that provides protection against deportation to people who arrived in the United States while still minors, provided they are enrolled in school, have graduated or obtained a high school completion certificate, have obtained a General Education Development (GED) Certificate, or are an honorably discharged veteran the United States Coast Guard or the United States Armed Forces. They are known as “dreamers” or “sonadores”.
