Traveling art exhibit urges action to protect ‘Dreamers’ during Costa Mesa visit

A traveling art exhibit stopped at The Lab in Costa Mesa on Wednesday in an effort to put a human face on the immigration debate and urge congressional action to protect from deportation people who were brought into the country illegally as children.

Organizers of the “Inside Out/Dreamers” project said their goal is to encourage support for the Dream Act — legislation that would allow those immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” to earn lawful permanent residence in the United States and, eventually, citizenship.

Such action is necessary, supporters say, given President Trump’s recent move to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program that shielded nearly 800,000 such individuals from deportation and made them eligible for work permits.

Unless Congress comes up with a solution by the time the program is scheduled to end in March, people covered by DACA — more than one-fourth of whom live in California — could face deportation.

“They’re here; they’re working; they’re going to school,” “Inside Out/Dreamers” spokeswoman Paola Ramos said Wednesday. “We just want them to be able to do the same things because this is the only country they know. They were brought here by their parents.”

Ivan Ceja is among the DACA beneficiaries who call California home. He immigrated to the United States from Mexico with his parents when he was 9 months old.

Now 25, he’s still undocumented, but not for lack of trying, he said. The country’s immigration system, he said, is full of more hurdles than many realize.

“There isn’t necessarily a line for all of us to get behind,” the Compton resident said. “If there was, believe me, we’d be signed up.”

On Wednesday, dozens of people entered a photo booth truck set up at The Lab to take pictures of themselves.

The images were printed on large sheets of paper, then pasted to the side of one of the shopping center’s buildings.

The resulting collage was made up of a variety of ages, genders and ethnicities.

That wasn’t lost on Ceja.

“That is what Dreamers look like,” he said. “You can’t necessarily stereotype us into a certain category, and that’s why we want to change that narrative.”

During the event, speakers implored elected officials such as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) to support a “clean” Dream Act — one that doesn’t include additional immigration enforcement measures or funding.

A spokesman for Rohrabacher did not return an email Wednesday seeking comment.

Ramos said almost 4,000 Dreamers live in Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach alone.

“Those are people that you work with,” she said. “Those are people that serve in our military. They’re your friends; they’re your teachers — you may know, you may not know. The only difference is that someone has papers, the other one doesn’t.”

“Inside Out/Dreamers” is a collaboration of the Emerson Collective, a social-justice organization, and the Inside Out Project, a participatory art initiative from French artist JR.

The Costa Mesa exhibit continues from noon to 6 p.m. Thursday at The Lab, 2930 Bristol St. Other exhibits are scheduled nationwide in coming weeks, culminating in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 18.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter @LukeMMoney