Dreamers are voicing their disappointment with Nicky Jam after the reggaeton singer endorsed former President Donald Trump last week.
The endorsement Friday didn’t sit well with people like Adrian Escárate, a former DACA recipient who was featured in a 2018 video Jam did in collaboration with Spotify to support Dreamers fighting back against the actions of the Trump administration.
As president in 2017, Trump rescinded DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed eligible undocumented young adults who came to the U.S. as children to work and study without fear of deportation. The Supreme Court blocked his move.
Escárate said Saturday on X that he shared with Jam the fears that overcame thousands of Dreamers after Trump acted to take away their immigration protections. "Fast forward to now where it seems Nicky Jam used me to promote his music + sellout our community. Thanks for nothing," said Escárate, a senior media strategist at the National Immigration Law Center.
In the 2018 video, Jam spoke with Escárate and two other Dreamers about the stakes of losing DACA. "When I heard the first things that came out of Trump's mouth, I said, 'Oh, my God, this sounds ugly,'" Jam told them. "It's obviously a racist situation."
Juan Escalante, a former DACA recipient who continues to advocate for Dreamers, pointed out Jam’s shifting stances on X, saying, “Nicky Jam’s hypocrisy has no limits.”
Two publicists for Jam did not respond to emails requesting comment Monday.
On Friday night, Jam briefly joined Trump onstage at a rally in Las Vegas. The appearance became the source of countless memes and jokes on social media after Trump mistakenly introduced Jam as a woman and seemed surprised to find out he is a man. Even Jam himself poked fun at the incident in a now-deleted Instagram post promoting his appearance.
But peppered in between were the messages of disillusioned fans who questioned Jam over his previous remarks supporting Dreamers and the DACA program.
At the rally, Trump said: “Latin music superstar Nicky Jam, do you know Nicky? She’s hot. Where’s Nicky?” As Trump looked offstage to find Jam, a tall man wearing all black, bold eyeglasses, a sparkly chain necklace and a red “Make America Great Again” cap came to greet him onstage. Once Jam was at the podium, Trump corrected his mistake, saying, “Oh, look, I’m glad he came up.”
Despite the mishap, Jam gushed over meeting Trump onstage.
"It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President. People that come from where I come from, they don’t meet the president," said Jam, who is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican. "So I’m lucky."
He then switched to Spanish to address Trump supporters in the crowd, saying: "It's been four years and nothing has happened. We need Trump. Let's make America great again."
The remarks led the acclaimed Mexican rock band Maná to take down its song “De Pies a Cabeza,” a collaboration with Jam, from music streaming services. Members of the band have been longtime critics of Trump.
Members said they "don't work with racists" in a statement in Spanish on Sunday. “For the past 30 years, Maná has supported and defended the rights of Latinos around the world. There is no business or promotion that is worth more than the dignity of our people."
Astrid Silva, a DACA recipient and an immigration activist who co-founded the nonprofit group Dream Big Nevada, responded on X to Jam's Trump endorsement.
"People are free to support who they want, everyone else is also free to continue questioning them," she said.
Silva also wondered whether Jam and other reggaeton singers who have recently endorsed Trump are unaware that the fate of the DACA program is still uncertain as a seven-year court battle play outs following legal challenges from the Trump administration and nine Republican-led states seeking to terminate DACA.
DACA's uncertain future
Though Trump wasn't able to end DACA after the Supreme Court ruled it could remain in place, lawsuits from Republican states have limited it.
A federal judge in Texas overseeing the legal battle has ruled DACA illegal multiple times over the past several years but has refrained from fully terminating it.
Under his most recent ruling issued last September, only current DACA recipients or those whose DACA statuses expired less than a year ago can continue to renew them every two years. But DACA remains closed for new applicants.
Roughly 580,000 current recipients can continue to renew their DACA statuses. But since DACA was closed for new applicants, an estimated 400,000 people who would have been eligible have been shut out of it, including nearly 93,000 first-time applicants who have been left in limbo for the past three years after having filed the necessary paperwork.
Supporters have long said DACA is one of the most successful policies for immigrant integration.
The average DACA recipient is a young adult in his or her 30s, Bruna Sollod, senior communications and political director with United We Dream, said at the news briefing. Most DACA recipients have lived in the U.S. for more than 16 years.
"Nearly half of DACA recipients are now married, and 50% of them have a child," Sollod said. "DACA is not just about the DACA recipients; it's about the ripple effect that would be caused if the program were to end."
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