RALEIGH, N.C. — The Supreme Court is keeping limits on asylum seekers in place, for now.
Title 42 was put in place under President Donald Trump at the start of the pandemic. The name refers to a federal public health law that allows the government to restrict people from coming into the country during public health emergencies.
Immigration advocates sued to end the policy, arguing that it’s outdated and goes against the obligation to protect people who are escaping persecution.
For Alexandra Valladares, working at the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, which has its headquarters in Raleigh, is coming full circle.
“From six weeks to 6 years old, we are literally setting kids on the right foot to success for school readiness,” Valladares, a Honduran-American immigrant, said. “We work with the families of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. We are in 10 states. We have close to 3,000 children that we serve.”
Originally from Honduras, Valladares was five when she crossed the border in 1987 with her younger sister, desperate to be reunited with her mom.
“The opportunities that I have been provided, the opportunities that have come to me and my family are not the opportunities that everyone has,” Valladares said. “I'm grateful that everything turned out the way it did, but I do know that for every case where things turn out positive, that there's a positive resolution to it, there's countless of stories where things don't actually go in that way. There's countless pain.”
Valladares said it’s unsettling to see the current situation at the border. Her dad is still struggling to make it to the United States, even just to visit.
“We've tried, my father has tried time and time again to get a visa to see his daughter, and he can’t,” Valladares said. "Having your family is one of the greatest gifts you can have, and it is my dream that I'll have my father and my brothers with me. It is my dream that I'll have my family with me."
Although the future of immigration policies is uncertain, she hasn’t lost faith that eventually other people will get the same chance she was given.
“I continue to hold hope for hearts to be changed and people to know this is about human life and this is all we have right now. The opportunity to either make life better for others or to actually harm people and we have to live with that choice,” Valladares said.
Valladares said the path to become a citizen is very long and people are often left in limbo. It took her 13 years. She became a U.S. citizen at 18, just in time to apply to college.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, over the last three years, over two million migrants have been turned away under Title 42.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on the case during its session that starts in February.