Victor Napoles (21), an undocumented immigrant, is facing deportation to Mexico after barking back at the dog of a border patrol agent at a traffic light.

What started off as a late-night silly joke a year ago has turned into a nightmare for a fellow DREAMer and his family. Napoles, who has been fighting his deportation case for almost a year now, says that he had no idea that such a small act could lead to such drastic consequences.

"I was taking my friend home and was at a stoplight when an unmarked Durango drove up next to me," Napoles said. "The dog in the car started barking at me and I thought, 'Why not?' and barked back. I had no idea it was a Border Patrol's dog." Shortly after the light turned green and Napoles drove away, he noticed flashing police lights and pulled over. "The first thing the officer said was, 'Why were you barking at my dog?'" Napoles said. "I was dumbfounded."

For the past few months, we have witnessed conflicting points of views expressed by the public officials in North Carolina on whether to allow undocumented students access to postsecondary education. Yesterday, the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) clarified once and for all that federal law did not prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending colleges.

Last year, David J. Sullivan, assistant to the president for legal affairs for the North Carolina community college system, wrote to the leaders of the 58 community colleges that, “notwithstanding any policy of the local board, colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals” as out-of-state residents. Governor Easley agreed while the systemwide President, Martin Lancaster issued a statement saying

"For North Carolina to be competitive in a global economy, it must depend on a knowledge-based workforce which makes it imperative that every future worker in North Carolina receive as much education as possible.  To deny a significant portion of tomorrow’s workforce any higher education opportunities will not only hurt these young people who came to North Carolina through no fault of their own, but it will also significantly diminish their incomes forever. The consequences to North Carolina are reduced tax collections and potential payments for social services and incarceration long into the future.  This will hit the pocketbooks of those who now oppose maximizing the earning capacity of everyone who lives in North Carolina. This ill-advised position would hurt North Carolina and its economic future and will increase the tax burden of those now screaming the loudest."

Yet, this past week the Attorney General of North Carolina wrongly interpreted federal immigration law, stating that it prohibited undocumented immigrants from attending colleges and North Carolina must stop doing so immediately. This misperception is shared by many and it is about time our officials responsible for upholding immigration law clarified that there was no law on the books that prohibited postsecondary education of undocumented immigrants.

Aspiring and talented artist, Meynardo Garcia (18), who has lived here since he was 10, is facing deportation to Mexico. Newsie and I both blogged about this today so I would like to focus on the impact of his deportation, rather than the story. You can read the entire article here. 

Part of a talented Generation 1.5 of students that are nonetheless treated like criminals in this country, it is disheartening to see an honest, talented and hardworking young student like Meynardo Garcia--who is well-liked by many at his school and a pride to his community--to have his dreams cut short by our stringent immigration laws.

I have had family over from my country of origin this past week, and it has been a nightmare. Besides the fact that we are so 'out-of-touch' and I am certainly not free to 'entertain' people, I really dislike their prying questions. The one I faced this morning really while I was getting ready for work was: "You should learn to drive. Then next time we are here, you can take us around." WHAT? NEXT TIME you are here??? Did you just invite yourself over at my expense? I bit my tongue and just said hurriedly that I don't have the time. What I really meant was that 1. I don't have the time to learn how to drive and 2. even if I did, I would have no time to take anyone sight-seeing.

But the little insight into my morning shows the excuses we have to make in our daily life about minuscle things such as driving a car. And I am someone who identifies as an avid cyclist with too many horror stories of vehicles trying to drive me off the road so any mention of 'driving' makes me angry for not only the fact that I cannot drive or get a license. Having to depend on other family members or your girlfriends to drive you around is so tedious and being the independent type, I take my bicycle everywhere. Besides, it is good for the environment, inexpensive, good exercise and more flexible in traffic. And a car is expensive and requires much more maintenance and fees, not to mention the ever-increasing costs of gasoline.

Are those enough excuses? What excuses do you give? 

Meynardo Garcia recently won a prize in a national contest sponsored by the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center in Hollywood.

Garcia's inspiration came from:

"...the memory of emaciated children walking the streets of his hometown inspired his drawing of the doomed children in his prize-winning piece."

Meynardo Garcia is also an undocumented student. He was brought to this country illegally at the age of 10. He is now eighteen and is fighting deportation back to Mexico. Garcia and a friend, who was also an undocumented immigrant, were stopped at a random checkpoint at the Port of Miami last August. Since neither had identification, they were taken in. Garcia's friend was deported, while Garcia was sent to a detention center in New York.

Despite being released after three weeks in the detention center, Garcia's time in the United States is ticking away. An immigration judge had granted him stay until Sept. 18^th, 2008 to allow him to find an attorney and prepare his case.

Garcia would be saved from deportation by the DREAM Act, but chances of the bill being enacted into law before his court day are very slim.

Josh Bernstein, director of federal policy for the National Immigration Law Center, is quoted in the article:

Bernstein referred to Garcia as part of the "1.5 generation" -- wedged between the first generation of immigrant adults and the second generation of U.S.-born children.

"It is a very promising generation, but our laws are written in such a way that we treat them like criminals," he said.

Garcia meanwhile is hopeful for his future in the United States, and is currently working on building up his case. At the least, the immigration judge should extend Garcia's stay for another year because there is hope (and hope is all we, undocumented students, have) that DREAM Act will pass in 2009.

First, before you read any further, go watch the trailer for Disney's movie, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Then, come back so we can talk about it.

You like that? Hmmm?

At a time when writers and producers of material about human Latinos face unprecedented resistance to our material, Hollywood had absolutely no problem green-lighting "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." It will be released in September, which is (coincidentally? methinks not) Hispanic History Month in the United States. Note: The brown male dog hooks up with the whitest female dog ever, and asks, slyly, "Jealous?" Also note, he is "50 percent warrior, 50 percent lover."

Nah, no stereotypes there.

At a time when new information about the incredible complexity of ancient Mayan civilization, writing, language and mathematics is being uncovered, at a time of unprecedented attacks upon those of Mexican descent in this country, at a time when history books are finally starting to admit that many tens of millions more indigenous people were killed in the Americas than previously admitted - this, THIS is what we get from our film industry.

A film industry with a long history of very cozy relationships with government propagandists.

If I hadn't sat in so many meetings where studio execs made comments that would make Jim Crow laws seem enlightened, I wouldn't believe it. But believe it I do. George Lopez and Salma Hayek on board to voice the characters.

Thoughts?

The House Committee on Education and Labor held hearings this past Tuesday to investigate whether existing federal programs like H-2A, H-2B ensure that American workers are recruited before employers hire from abroad.

Of particular concern to us was the testimony of Bill Beardall, Director for the Equal Justice Center in Austin, Texas. His major premise was that due to the failure of our government in enforcing wage laws for ALL workers, employers took advantage and exploited undocumented workers, causing a downward spiral of wages, working conditions and job opportunities for American citizens. The best way to ensure labor protections and job opportunities for U.S. workers was to ensure that wage laws and labor protections are fully enforced for all workers regardless of immigration status. Instead of scapegoating undocumented immigrants, Beardall lays emphasis on the need for equal protection of the law in order to find a solution to scrupulous employers benefitting from cheap labor sources.

According to this scenario, the undocumented worker is not to 'blame' for Americans working for less wages and losing their jobs; rather it is the federal government along with scrupulous employers that are at fault. If all workers were treated equally in wages, working conditions and labor protections, we would not see a downward spiral of wages, and hiring an undocumented worker over an American citizen would not be enticing anymore. Consequently, this would also discourage 'illegal immigration' since the concept of 'cheap labor' for hire would not exist.

This take on policymaking makes more sense than raiding workplaces and locking up undocumented workers in our jails. What do you think about Bill Beardall's testimony?

It is every graduate students dream; being offered an assistantship that includes full tuition plus a stipend.

Recently one of the graduate schools I applied for offered me the above. The admission office was aware of my *situation*, but the actual academic program I was applying for did not.  I had to turn the offer down.

I explained to the program that I was undocumented, and that I do not have a work permit or green card or any other paper that allows me to be employed. I did take a gamble by ‘coming out' about my situation. I was hoping that the school could give me the assistantship offer in another form, such as tuition reimbursement without the stipend.

In the end the school was unable to help me, but they did spend two weeks trying to see if there was a way I could be eligible just for tuition. Between complicated immigration laws and the universities own policies, there was nothing the program could do. I appreciated their efforts whole-heartedly for they could have immediately said the offer was revoked. Even though I cannot afford that particular school without any help, my parents do have enough savings for me to enroll in another graduate school.

I did some research about undocumented students and stipends, and I found the following information in a Guide for AB 540 students (undocumented students in California):

Stipends:  Undocumented students' may be eligible for privately funded stipends.

Research
Working on your own research with faculty members at a college or university is one way to get research experience and possibly earn money. Sometimes undocumented AB 540 stu­dents are paid for this type of work in the form of a "stipend." A stipend is a sum of money allotted on a regular basis, such as a salary for services rendered or an allowance. Undocumented AB 540 students may be eligible for stipends if the source of funding is tax-exempt. If the stipend comes directly from a public college or university's funds, undocu­mented AB 540 students are not eligible. Remember, government funds are not available to undocumented AB 540 students.

I know I earned the assistantship - through hard work and my achievements in undergraduate school. It is very frustrating knowing the only reason I cannot claim it is because of my immigration status; because of a choice made by my parents when I was only five years old.

I am not the first DREAMER who has turned down an assistantship or internship or job offer, and I will certainly not be the last until the DREAM Act passes. There are a lot of undocumented students who were just graduating high school or early in their college career when DREAM Act was first introduced as a bill in 2001, and who are now in their mid-twenties. Some of them have gone on to law school, medical school, and graduate school. If the United States doesn't pass the DREAM Act in the next year or so, these DREAMERS will be forced to leave the only home they know, and the country will lose a group of well-educated Americans.

May 6, 1882 is the date for the birth of 'illegal immigration.' Like most social concerns that are only deemed as a 'problem' when it benefits the state, the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States, the so-called 'yellow peril' and 'Asian invasion' now required 'documentation.' The Chinese were constructed as unassimilable peoples, not eligible for citizenship under the Chinese Exclusion Act of  1882. The Act also restricted Chinese immigration by excluding Chinese laborers from entering the country for the next 10 years under penalty of deportation and imprisonment. This would pave the way for more codes and statutes restricting Chinese immigration:

S 6 (22 Stat. 58, . 120), provides that every Chinese person other than a laborer, who may be entitled to come within the United States, shall produce a prescribed certificate of his identity and of his right to enter: and Act July 5, 1884, provides that this certificate "shall be the sole evidence
permissible on the part of the person so producing the same to establish a right of entry into the United States." Act Oct. 1. 18X8. prohibits any Chinese laborer who had been, or was then, or might hereafter be, a resident within the United States, and who had departed or might depart therefrom, to return to or remain in the United States. Held, that since the passage of the latter act no Chinese person, formerly resident in the United States but temporarily absent
therefrom, is entitled to return without the
prescribed certificate.—Wan Shing v. United
State», 140 U. S. 424. 11 S. Ct. 729, 35 L. Ed. 03.

What led to the enacted of Chinese exclusion? Was it working class fears of Chinese immigrants taking their jobs (as is the excuse given today) or simply sheer racism that the anti-illegal immigrant lobby denies in contemporary times?

I get hopeful every time USCIS revises the guidelines for the Child Status Protection Act, which prevents the children of U.S. Citizen and Permanent Residents from aging-out under their immigrant visa petitions when they turn 21. Maybe, just maybe, I would no longer age-out under the I-130 immigrant petition filed on behalf of my parents back in 2000. The USCIS explains the new policy changes on its website:

Under prior policy guidance, USCIS considered an alien beneficiary of a visa petition that was approved before August 6, 2002 to be covered by the CSPA only if the beneficiary had filed an application for permanent residence (either adjustment of status or an immigrant visa) on or before August 6, 2002, and no final determination had been made on that application prior to August 6, 2002. This new policy extends CSPA coverage to aliens who had an approved visa petition prior to the enactment of CSPA but who did not have a pending application for permanent residence on the date of enactment of the CSPA.

It means that many DREAMers who have immigrant petitions like I-130 or I-140 filed on their behalf, may be eligible for residency with their parents even after they reach 21. Prior to this new guideline, CSPA only applied to the children of U.S. citizens and Permanent Residents. 

However, the complicated mathematical formula of calculating the "CSPA age" remains intact under the new guidelines. Instead of simply employing a blanket rule that all children who have an immigrant petition filed on their behalf retain the benefits of that petition even after turning 21, USCIS has condemned us to this calculation:

1. Alien's Date of Birth:
2. Date Petition Filed:
3. Date Petition Approved:
4. Length of Time Petition Pending (#3 minus #2):
5. Date Petition Became Current:
6. Date Visa Became Available (Later of #3 or #5):
7. Age of Alien on Date Visa Became Available (#6 minus #1):
8. Age for CSPA purpose: Age at time Visa Became Available minus Length of Time Petition Pending (#7 minus #4):

Even immigration attorneys have a hard time figuring out what this means. And I probably still age-out under the complex calculations.

The national security state has reached deep into our workplaces, homes and schools via the ICE, which feels especially compelled to terrorize Bay Area communities as of late. Citizen and non-citizen children alike are distracted and harmed by the military-type presence of ICE officers raiding our homes, workplaces and schools. This is when immigration federalism makes sense—our communities are supposed to be sanctuary cities, not open to raids for ICE officers.

What is more, the ICE uses euphemisms employed in war.  For example, raids are now being called "collateral arrests," dehumanizing the devastating effects of ripping families apart, scaring young children and creating a climate of fear in our communities.

After "Documented Dreams," a collection of letters by high school DREAMers, the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education has come out with "Underground Undergrads"--an anthology written by undocumented students at UCLA.

For more information and to purchase the book, click here. 

The American Prospect ran a review of the book with some great commentary about the DREAM Act: 

The truth is that many of these young people have never known any other home but America. They’ve never dreamed any other dreams but those that manifest in American law schools and science labs. Some of them have never even spoken a language fluently other than American English (for better or worse).

And they don’t just need America. America needs them. We have always benefited from the ingenuity, passion, and dedication of immigrants. It is the zeitgeist that has animated our American story for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, the other part of that story is one of xenophobia, state-endorsed relocation and violence, and fear. I’d prefer to tell the former version this time around. Wouldn’t you?

 Click here to read more. 

When NY Times obtained and released the list of immigrant detainees that have died in detention from 2004-2007, I immediately scrouged the list for young adults, hoping that I would not find any persons who may have been eligible under the DREAM Act. What I discovered left me shocked and rattled.

Barely in their 20s, Felipe Garcia-Sanchez, Ervin Ruiz-Tabares, Nery Romero and Raudel Carlos-Cortez, chose to commit suicide in detention. More young adults in their late 20s and early 30s--Cesar Rioz-Martinez, Geovanny Garcia-Mejia, Juan Salazar-Gomez, Sebastian Mejia Vicentes, Hassiba Belbachir--also resorted to suicide rather than deportation. Who were these young adults? Could any of them have qualified under the DREAM Act before their final deportation orders? What are their stories? Were conditions so horrible that they opted to take their own lives rather than live another day in-limbo and in fear of being sent to a foreign country? Did we separate them from their U.S. citizen spouses and children? Did we unknowingly condemn our future doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, scientists and social workers to death? We may never know.

We don't have many details on these individuals but on the most part, they were probably either legal permanent residents being deported due to prior misdeamnors and felony convictions or immigrants detained due to the civic violation of being undocumented. To draw an analogy, imagine being detained for breaking a traffic law, locked up in bad humanitarian conditions and ending up dead. Sounds like 'cruel and unusual punishment?' You bet.

Last year, Monica and her cousin, Jose, both seniors at a high school in Dallas, were picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Both of them represent the wasted talent and lost investment that America is willing to export in the form of migrant bodies.

Monica has been in the United States since she was five years old, maintained excellent grades and stayed out of trouble. Her only alleged transgression is that her parents brought her to this country without proper documentation. After living and growing up American in this country for thirteen years, Monica faces deportation to a place and culture foreign to her. At this time, her deportation hearing has been delayed for another month.

Another DREAM Act beneficiary, Jose faced his final hearing at the Immigration Court in Dallas hoping to stay his deportation, fully supported by the Central Dallas Ministries, which "committed to stand with him, pay for his higher education and support him in every other way as he completed college." The federal prosecutor did not want to exercise administrative discretion and Jose was given a "voluntary departure" judgment that must be fulfilled within 120 days.

Finally, there is a website dedicated to 'jailing immigrants for profit.'

Video credit goes to The Business of Detention 

See previous blog post - Immigration Control is Lucrative Business