The DREAMer President Barack Obama highlighted in his national address on immigration Thursday night said she felt “complete relief” when Obama laid out his plan to shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and said she was surprised to hear him tell her story.
“It was completely unexpected. I didn’t know that it was coming,” Astrid Silva, an undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S. with her parents when she was four, said in an interview with CNN Friday.
Obama said Thursday that he will use his executive authority to focus immigration officials on “felons, not families. Criminals, not children.”
Silva did not at first hear her name as she watched alongside a boisterous group of fellow immigration reform activists.
“And when he started talking about the cross and my dress and I said, ‘That’s how I came here!’” Astrid recalled. “It was definitely a moment that I’ll never forget.”
During his speech on Thursday, Obama said: “Astrid was brought to America when she was 4 years old. Her only possessions were a cross, her doll and the frilly dress she had on.”
Read a transcript of Obama’s speech
Silva was motivated to begin advocating for herself and other undocumented immigrants when her grandmother died and she couldn’t travel to Mexico for her funeral.
“Are we a nation that kicks out a striving, hopeful immigrants like Astrid or are we a nation that finds a way to welcome her in,” Obama said Thursday.
Silva said she watched the speech while standing next to her father who is facing deportation orders, but could get temporary legal status thanks to Obama’s action because his son, Silva’s brother, is a U.S. citizen, according to the Washington Post.
Obama’s orders will give papers and work authorization to up to 4 million undocumented parents of U.S. citizens.
“We won’t have to worry that this is going to be our last holidays together,” she said. “It was just very emotional.”
Silva will meet Obama on Friday when he heads to Las Vegas to continue making his case at a high school.
Silva was relieved by Obama’s actions, but said what’s missing is still “a law by Congress, since they refused to act on it.”
“A lot of parents of students who are undocumented are not included,” she said. “We are going to continue fighting for them and this is not the end.”