When Alin Yukiro Badillo Carrillo was 8, her parents separated and she immigrated with her mother from Mexico to Jackson. She has never been able to vote.
For Badillo Carrillo — and many others without a path to citizenship — Tuesday’s election results are all about the presidency.
Like many kids who came to the United States as children, Badillo Carrillo has been able to work legally and have some protection from deportation under the Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Status recipients are referred to as Dreamers.
Exact stats for the immigrant population in Teton County are sparse, said Rosie Read, founder of the Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project.
“We all know that the immigration system is broken,” Read said. “That is no secret.”
In an effort to inform how the election might impact immigrants in Teton County, Read’s organization partnered with another nonprofit, Immigrant Hope, for a free discussion on federal immigration policy and the potential impacts of Tuesday’s election. About two dozen people were in the audience at the Teton County Library.
“It’s a tough question,” said Badillo Carillo. “If you are undocumented or if you have DACA like myself, whose program is constantly under threat… it’s scary.”
What this election means for immigrants depends on their legal status.
During his presidency, Trump moved to end the Obama-era DACA program. In 2020, the Supreme Court shot down that effort, saying the administration did not follow the rules required to end the program.
In her effort to court Latino voters, Kamala Harris has defended DACA.
With Trump warning of mass deportations immediately if he wins, Read emphasized that no matter what policies changed, some protections would remain.
“The right to speak with an attorney, the right to remain silent, the right to not open your door if someone knocks on unless they have a warrant signed by a judge — all of those are still intact, regardless of who the president is,” she said.
According to the American Immigration Council, Wyoming currently has 510 DACA recipients, most of which live in Teton County.
Badillo Carillo says that for DACA recipients, there’s a lot of fear on a ballot in an election they’re not authorized to vote in.
If an administration were to cut the program, she said, “I could literally just not be able to be here anymore.”
These days, Badillo Carrillo is the executive director of Voices Jackson Hole. Commonly referred to as “Voices,” its mission is to engage and empower the immigrant communities of the Teton region. She works to make the immigrant community, no matter their status, more robust.
She estimates Voices JH serves over 600 households from 24 different countries and which speak more than 18 languages.
Despite fears, Badillo Carrillo said she has faith that Jackson’s immigrant community could weather uncertainties of future policies. That’s because, she said, hope for the Jackson community as a whole is strong.
