Immigration movement: 'Dreamers' organize CLOUD group to help others avoid deportation

This young man has started a group in collaboration with Catholic Charities to help the "Dreamers" learn the program and also working for complete immigration reform.   - - Donna Poisl

By Theresa Harrington, Contra Costa Times

RICHMOND -- When Carlos Martinez was 11 years old, he jumped the border in Arizona between Mexico and the United States and made his way across a desert for four days and three nights with his younger sister and a group of about 20 other immigrants, led by a "coyote," a person paid to smuggle people into the country. After the journey, Martinez and his sister joined their mother in Salinas.

He attended schools in the community and wanted to go to college but was told by his high school counselor that he couldn't, because he was undocumented.

"I was the first in my family to graduate from high school, so that was a big thing for my mom," the soft-spoken 23-year-old said recently. "But I didn't know what was my future. So, I worked cutting lettuce in the fields for six or seven months."
Click on the HEADLINE above to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.