Ivan Godinez, leader of Tulsa's DREAM Act affiliate, is promoting a boot camp being held this weekend in Tulsa.
Eleazar Velasquez, leaders of Norman's DREAM Act affiliate, will be among the participants in an event this weekend in Tulsa to discuss immigration reform.
The voices of Oklahoma's immigrant youth are becoming louder and more organized.
For years, Tulsa youth have been building a coalition around the issue of immigration reform.
Beginning 6 p.m. Saturday and running through about 8 p.m. Sunday, an "Immigration Boot Camp" is being held at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, 621 E. 4th St.
The purpose is to discuss the steps needed to improve the laws and policies about immigration at the local, state and national levels.
It will be a platform for inclusive and comprehensive reform.
The event is sponsored by DREAM Act Oklahoma, an affiliate of the United We Dream network.
Ivan Godinez, a Tulsa resident who emigrated from Mexico at age 14, is the leader of the DREAM Act of Oklahoma-Tulsa group.
"We used to be Tulsa-based only, but now we have spread to Oklahoma City and Norman, which comes to show how much we’ve grown and how much the immigrant community has grown in Oklahoma as well," Godinez said.
Godinez was undocumented through his teen years and was recently granted approval in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
He has been attending Tulsa Community College and will be graduating with two degrees.
Godinez said the group wants a diverse attendance at the event.
"We will have a variety of people, from high school students to already well-established leaders of our community, also members of the LGBT community and people of various ethnic backgrounds," Godinez said.
"We want to collectively decide which actions we’re going to take in order to make a change."
The youth plan to use the discussion in continuing its grass-roots outreach for change.
“If we have learned anything from past civil right movements is that we cannot wait around for the government to make a change," said Eleazar Velasquez, leader of DREAM Act Oklahoma-Norman.
"We have to make change happen and that is essentially what we want to do, create a real change for the undocumented community who lives in fear daily and this training will help us do exactly that."
Velasquez graduated from Millwood High School in Oklahoma City, but arrived from Mexico as a 3-year-old without legal documents.
He graduated third in his class and has been attending the University of Oklahoma as he can afford it.
In November, Velasquez received approved for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
It is a federal program that gives a temporary reprieve from deportation to undocumented children.
The qualifications mirror those in decade-old pending legislation known as the DREAM Act.
The Tulsa World has written about Godinez and Velasquez in its continuing coverage of immigration at tulsaworld.com/immigration
For more information on the boot camp,contact Godinez at 918-352-1281 or email at Ivan@dreamactok.org
