Joel Verdejo Flores worked without authorization for nearly five years in California before obtaining a green card that made him a permanent resident in 1995.
He was 20 years old, Bill Clinton was president and moving beyond residency to citizenship didn’t seem like a pressing matter. But that changed in 2016 with the election of President Donald Trump.
As Trump’s supporters continued shouting, “Build that wall,” the Santa Rosa father of two U.S.-born children heard that immigration enforcement was becoming more rigorous. He stopped wavering.
“When the new president entered, I think that a lot of residents got worried and began to look for a way to become citizens,” he told ChicoSol in an interview in Santa Rosa’s Bicentennial Park, a neighborhood playground his children enjoy. “In the airports, they check your record more and detain you more frequently,” he added.
