Belén Sisa is a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant and student at Arizona State University. She is originally from Argentina, and she’s been living in America ever since she was six-years-old. Sisa and her family visited the United States and ended up overstaying their visas, but she is protected from being deported via President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
On Sunday, March 26, Sisa posted a photo to Facebook of her tax return. The post has since gone viral, with over 4,800 reactions and 2,700 shares as of this writing. This is the post that’s been creating such a buzz.
[protected-iframe id=”3a127cae2009d19fd7ca9c028c8e35c5-3508545-105109074″ info=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBelenDREAMS%2Fposts%2F1336499493062644&width=500″ width=”500″ height=”616″ frameborder=”0″ style=”border: none; overflow: hidden;” scrolling=”no”]
While a lot of people are applauding Sisa, there are also many people going ballistic and calling for her to be deported. Here are some of the most cruel messages Sisa has received.
Immigration is a very sensitive issue in our country these days, and there’s no better illustration of the tension this topic produces than by seeing the reactions to Sisa’s post.
Via AZ Central, here’s what Sisa was hoping to accomplish with her picture.
“I was hoping to kind of make a statement and educate people. What you’ve known all this time isn’t the truth,” Sisa said Monday morning.
Sisa is an outspoken advocate for dreamers: In 2015 she wrote a popular opinion piece pressing Arizona leaders to grant in-state tuition to dreamers. Last year she served as a page at the Democratic National Convention, even though she can’t vote.
“I decided to post it basically to bust the myth that immigrants don’t contribute and they don’t pay taxes to this country,” she said. She said she filed state and federal taxes and, in the end, paid $300 to the state.
