As the floodwaters rose in my west Houston neighborhood after Hurricane Harvey landed, my husband and many of our neighbours pulled boats through waist-high water, knocked on doors and plucked people from their submerged houses. They rescued elderly couples, young roommates, families who do not speak English. There was no checking of IDs, no debate on whether a life was worth saving.

All across the city, as catastrophic flooding threatened to drown us, regular people risked their lives to help others. Alonso Guillen, a radio host and DJ who lived in Lufkin, Texas, two hours from Houston, brought a boat and a group of friends here to join in those efforts. He was on that boat, saving people he had never met before, when it capsized last Wednesday and he drowned. Guillen died a hero, if not an American citizen. He was a “Dreamer”, a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme, and like the nearly 141,000 other Dreamers in Texas, he followed the requirements of the program – to stay in school or be gainfully employed – and had never been convicted of a crime. More than that, Texas was his home.

READ MORE HERE:   http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/daca-dreamers-donald-trump-hurricane-harvey-houston-texas-a7936086.html