Richmond's immigration stories

Luis Cubas carries memories of harrowing violence from his last months in El Salvador. Now living in Richmond, Luis tells the story of a peer awaiting a deportation proceeding. Manuel Martinez talks about his growing ambition to attend college, and applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in order to graduate without the constant fear of deportation. "Throughout my life, I’ve felt disadvantaged because I wasn’t born here. The fear of deportation set in after watching an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on television — and that fear, I’ve come to realize, kept me from dreaming that life could be whatever I wanted it to be." Read two immigration stories, about fleeing from El Salvador to the United States and the journey to stay here, on Richmond Pulse.