Commentary: On Thursday, October 12, 2017, Juan Guzman of United We Dream reached out to Donna Taylor, Representative of Congressman Steve Pearce’s office based in Las Cruces, to set up a meeting for the NM Dream Team to voice their concerns and ask questions about DACA. Donna proceeded to provide Mr. Guzman with the contact information of Dr. Mariana Chew, a representative of Congressman Steve Pearce’s office, who is the point of contact for immigration issues in the district. Dr. Chew reached out to Mr. Guzman to arrange the meeting between herself and the group at the Congressional office. They agreed on a date and time, which was Thursday, October 19, 2017 at 12:00 PM MST.
Contrary to the false claims peddled to the press by the NM Dream Team, the group organizer, Mr. Guzman, was fully aware that this group was meeting with a representative from the Congressman’s office, not the Congressman himself. All correspondence between Mr. Guzman and the Congressman's office confirms this. Whether that was communicated with the group before they arrived for their meeting is a question for the organizer, Mr. Guzman. Further, a meeting with the Congressman was never even requested.
The group met with Dr. Chew for about an hour, and following their meeting, they proceeded to protest outside the office. Later in the afternoon, the group sent out a press release falsely claiming that Congressman Pearce had committed to meeting with them and that he "chose to cowardly hide" instead. As shown above, this is completely false, and we ask the NM Dream Team to retract their claims.
