Hip-Hop Video Model ‘Kat Stacks’ Sheds Persona; Supports the DREAM Act

After spending more than two years in jail, Andrea Herrera, known by her internet alias “Kat Stacks” is now supporting the DREAM Act after being released from a detention center and escaping deportation.

The Venezuelan native arrived in the United States as a child and by age 14 ran away from home. Stacks fell victim to the underage sex trafficking trade soon after, and was forced to work as a stripper. In 2010, law enforcement arrested Stacks for carrying an unlicensed firearm, and she was sent to jail to be deported. Herrera said her Stacks persona caused her to be unfairly judged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and that it was probably the main reason she was deported. Herrera also has a three-year-old son.

A few weeks after her release from prison, Herrera told NBC-6 Miami, “anything I do from now on is on a positive light. Not no more of the Kat Stacks ways.”

Inspired by her experience with jail time and the legal system, Stacks's more recently harnessed her Twitter following (more than 250,000 under her Stacks persona) to mobilize support for undocumented youth in the United States.

Herrera took to social media during the most recent DREAM Act discussion organized by Dreamactivist.org on Twitter, where she shared her story about being arrested and detained in a Louisiana immigration detention center, he battle with the human trafficking trade, and about her recent pivot toward DREAM advocacy work.

"Andrea, has a huge following from an area that is very non traditional to us," organizer Juan Escalante told Campus Progress. "And due to that large following we decided to host this as a way to give her a space and bridge that gap."

Herrera told NBC-6 Miami she wants to get her GED diploma and continue on to higher education in order to eventually counsel young women going through early life struggles. 

Melissa Adan is a reporter for Campus Progress.

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