11-year-old on DNC stage: Hillary Clinton eased my deportation fears

PHILADELPHIA — Karla Ortiz, an 11-year-old girl from Nevada, told the Democratic National Convention on Monday night that Hillary Clinton told her not to worry about her parents getting deported, because she would help.

Ortiz, a U.S. citizen born in Las Vegas, was accompanied by her mother, Francisca Ortiz. Both her parents are undocumented immigrants.

“On most days, I’m scared. I’m scared at any moment my mom and my dad will be forced to leave,” Ortiz said. “And I wonder, what if I come home, and find it empty?”

Ortiz and Clinton met in February at a roundtable in Vegas, when the little girl told Clinton she was worried her parents would be deported. Clinton gave the girl a hug and told her she would help her. The campaign later featured the moment in an emotional ad that played during the Nevada primary campaign, which Clinton won.

“Hillary Clinton told me she would do everything she could to help us,” Ortiz told the crowd. “She told me I wouldn’t have to do the worrying, because she would do the worrying for me and all of us.”

Earlier Monday, supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders interrupted the convention program when speakers spoke of Clinton. But the boos and chanting had died down by the time Ortiz and her mother spoke.

After Ortiz spoke, Astrid Silva, a young undocumented immigrant protected from deportation by President Obama’s executive action, criticized GOP nominee Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants from the United States.

“When Donald Trump talks about deporting 11 million people, he’s talking about ripping families apart. Hillary Clinton understands that this is not who we are as a country,” Silva said. “I have seen her comfort children like Karla who are scared they might lose their parents to deportation. I know she will fight to keep our families together.”

The platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties are starkly divided on the issue of immigration, perhaps more than ever before. Republicans want to build a wall along the southern border, to reduce legal immigration and to subject immigrants from countries “associated” with terrorism to “special scrutiny.” Democrats want to pass immigration reform to legalize most of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and to expand Obama’s executive actions protecting undocumented immigrants until that happens._____

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