Duke students urge NC lawmakers to support immigrant workers, families
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Duke staff (a housekeeper and a bus driver) lost jobs after TPS for Hondurans was revoked.
- Students met 13 legislators urging public support.
- Supreme Court review of TPS for Syrians and Haitians may affect Hondurans too.
A Duke University housekeeper spent 23 years cleaning campus buildings — long enough to befriend professors, clean their homes and care for their kids. She worked hard, she said, until the Trump administration revoked protected status for Hondurans.
Now, she’s out of a job, and scared to leave the house. Still, she and a group of Duke students visited the legislature on Wednesday to encourage North Carolina lawmakers to speak up about immigration policy.
The Duke student organization Beyond Borders advocates for this housekeeper, Margoth Erazo, and her colleague, a beloved Duke bus driver, Luis Juárez. Both lost their longtime jobs at Duke when Hondurans lost Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, in September. A court ruling briefly restored Hondurans’ status in December, until the decision was ultimately stayed in February.
TPS allows immigrants to work in the United States when their home countries are too dangerous to return to, for reasons like war or disaster or epidemic.
Erazo lives with her 22-year-old son who works in construction. She says she lives in fear of federal immigration officers — at the grocery store, on her own porch and in her own car. She does not want to suffer a separation of her family, she said.
“My wish is that there are fair and just laws for all immigrants to be able work and live peacefully without fear ... I believe no one deserves to live with fear or abuse,” Erazo said, with translation assistance from Duke sophomore Leila Zak.
“We come from the countries we come from because there, there’s a lot of poverty, and we come here to work hard,” she continued. “...I want for all politicians, senators, representatives and organizations to realize and empathize with the reality that immigrant families are living through. This is also my country, which I love, respect and admire.”
Duke students met with 13 legislators on Wednesday, including Sen. Dan Blue, a Duke alum and former chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees.
Rumana Dhakal, 18, and Zak, 19, told Blue about their advocacy efforts on campus and asked him to publicly voice his support for TPS holders like Erazo and Juárez. He, in turn, asked Dhakal and Zak questions about their work.
“What’s your idea and feeling about what the university is doing to articulate the concerns that you’re raising ... regardless of what the fear factor might be for institutions of higher education, especially those with targets on their back, such as Duke?” Blue asked.
Duke was the subject of a federal investigation this summer for alleged civil rights violations related to racial considerations in decision-making.
Duke’s visa office told student organizers there was nothing it could do to prolong Erazo and Juárez’s employment, Zak responded. “We do think that there is a viable way for Duke to be of assistance, in this case, in sponsoring a visa for Margoth and Luis,” Zak said. “But it would take a significant amount of resources and energy on their part that they haven’t shown us they’re willing to expend.”
Duke, however, says it doesn’t have an option.
“We were heartbroken when the federal government’s action to revoke temporary protected status for citizens of Honduras was reinstated,” a spokesperson for the school wrote. “This meant Luis Juárez and Margoth Erazo, both valued colleagues and members of our community, were legally not allowed to work in the U.S., and there are currently no employer-sponsored visa categories for which they would qualify under federal regulations.”
Another Duke sophomore, Ashley Cabrera, shared her story outside the legislative building Wednesday. Her Honduran family chose to self-deport after TPS was revoked, she said. Her father came to the United States when he was 18, and hasn’t returned to Honduras in 30 years.
“It is too dangerous to work as an undocumented immigrant in the United States, but it’s also too expensive to live without work or a steady income,” Cabrera said. “... He worked every single day since the moment he entered. He worked cleaning cemeteries. He worked in construction. His final job here was as a truck driver. He worked jobs that no one wanted to. I never once heard him complain. He always expressed his gratitude for being here.”
“I was born and raised in New Jersey, but now I don’t know what to say when people ask me, ‘Where do I live now?’”
In late April, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the Trump administration’s attempt to remove TPS for Syrians and Haitians. The court’s ruling may in turn impact immigrants from other countries like Honduras, students said.
