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. 18th, 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.
