Obama’s Failed Promise to Immigrant Families

In November, 2014, I attended a prayer circle at the home of a woman named Melida Lemus, in Trenton, New Jersey. Lemus grew up in Guatemala and came to America more than a decade ago, following her husband, Alfredo Godoy. Today, Lemus and Godoy are the parents of a thirteen-year-old U.S. citizen, Kathryn, and three teen-agers who fled Guatemala in recent years, who are, like their parents, undocumented. Just days before the prayer circle, President Obama had announced historic executive actions that promised to protect nearly five million undocumented immigrants from deportation.