ELISA SHOULD have been nervous at her first protest. Instead, the Mount Hood Community College student was giddy as she stood in robes and a mortarboard in Pioneer Courthouse Square last Wednesday, December 8. She was one of several illegal immigrants attending a 100-person mock graduation in support of the Dream Act, a national bill to create a path to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants who graduate from US high schools.
Right now, even though Elisa has lived nearly her whole life in Portland, it would take only one arrest—say, for disorderly conduct—to land her in swift deportation proceedings.
Support of the Dream Act—which heads to a Senate vote this month, after it passed the House of Representatives last week—has led young illegal immigrants locally and nationally to come out of the closet about their status.
The Urban Institute of Washington, DC, estimates that 65,000 illegal residents graduate from American high schools every year but see their ambitions to attend college or get good jobs stymied by a lack of papers. Portland-based immigration advocacy group CAUSA estimates that 44,000 Oregon students would qualify for citizenship in the future if the Dream Act passes.
But even as they’re coming out for public protests, local students without papers are trying to balance public activism with keeping a low profile—especially with immigration authorities increasingly scooping up people for transgressions as small as transit-fare jumping [“MAX-imum Punishment,” News, Aug 26].
Elisa, for example, isn’t the Mount Hood student’s real name. “This is the first time I’ve ever told anyone,” she said, referring to her immigration status. “In high school, it was very taboo. The only information we get is from each other: how to keep studying, how to get by.”
As the protest leaders shouted over a bullhorn to start a march around Pioneer Courthouse Square, Clark College student Gabriella stood off to the side of the crowd in her graduation robes.
“We are directly affected by the Dream Act. We feel it’s up to us to make it happen,” said Gabriella, whose parents brought her to the United States at age seven. Without federal financial aid, Gabriella says, she is paying for college with a generous donation from her fourth-grade teacher.
Deportations do happen, even to good students. Hector Lopez arrived in Portland as an infant and became student body president of Rex Putnam High School. But immigration officials arrested him and his parents this past August for missing an immigration hearing in 1999. Lopez, who speaks little Spanish and is now 21-years-old, is in an Arizona detention facility petitioning for asylum because he says he was physically threatened by a Mexican drug cartel after being deported to Mexico City. His case has both rallied and shocked local immigration activists.
Many of the mock-graduation organizers met during the production of Papers, a Portland-produced movie chronicling the lives of five illegal immigrant high school students.
“I am very protective and concerned about anyone talking about their status. But what we’ve done is try to follow their lead,” says Papers director Anne Galisky. “It’s very similar to the gay rights movement. Coming out is what will change people.”
Both Oregon senators support the Dream Act (Jeff Merkley is a co-sponsor), but Oregon’s US representatives split on last week’s vote. Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio supported it, Greg Walden and Kurt Schrader voted no, and David Wu abstained. While Schrader explained in a statement that he wants an immigration overhaul, not piecemeal change, opposition is strong. Oregonians for Immigration Reform is calling on legislators to vote against it.
“It would be a slap to people who are here legally,” says President Jim Ludwick, who thinks grads without papers should apply for college in their parents’ home countries. “Where are all these kids going to go? Are they going to compete for slots at Oregon universities?”
comparable to the gay rights movement? is she nuts?
so, theses kids got an education here on our dime and now want to be legal, just because…
some nerve!
my wife jumped through all the hoops back when, so should they.
and put the blame for all these sob stories where it belongs – on the parents.
Yeah yeah, & Gays are nuts for comparing THEIR sruggle to that of the Civil Rights movement. Discrimination is discrimination – plain & simple.
Btw, OFIR President/Grand Wizard Jim Ludwick really ought to just shut the fuck up. A brief glance at their site shows just how racist/xenopbobic these folks are.
Not that Oregonians for Immigration Reform was ever founded by actual Oregonians.
http://www.oregonir.org/
I’m having a hard time understanding your view on what constitutes discrimination I guess.
I don’t see it as discrimination at all to think our jobs and schools should be for citizens alone, with some exceptions, of course – as 99% of other countries also demand.
Whether they be brown, white, or plaid people.
frankieb… if you found a baby abandoned on the sidewalk, would you take it to a hospital or would you try to find proof it was born in the US? There is no difference between someone born in this country, or born in another except for the way we choose to treat them. In light of their legal status, do we make every effort to give them the benefits we would give our own children in that situation, or do we make our compassion contingent on other issues?
I think we should try to find a choice based on our mutual benefit. Teenagers that are enthusiastic residents and good students are likely to make at least as good citizens as many that did happen to be born here and it seems reasonable that we give them a shot to become citizens before others that have less of a claim. Personally, I feel like in general immigration adds more to a community than it costs, although I do think a country has a right to control it. However, i believe that that should be done with the greatest possible sense of compassion and mutual benefit. 🙂
So Riot nrrrrd, if another 50 million illegal aliens arrive in the next 10yrs, just welcome them in, free education, health care, jobs? It would be better for native born citizens to come in as illegal aliens and ask for things. We built this country of our own hard work and money: the border is artificial, the dirt in Tijuana is the same as San Ysidro or San Diego, it our laws, customs and hard work that make Mexico the dump it is in comparison to the great USA.
Thank you.
“We built this country of our own hard work and money” Revisionist history, anyone?
I think 4 million African slaves, millions of Native Americans, and thousands of Chinese coolies would beg to differ.
Ah, the burden of being a white male in America: it must have been sooooo hard for them to have to oversee the building of this country with other people’s hands.
Funny, I interpreted the “we” to include all the minorities of the US as well, as we are all citizens… but Chundy wants to play “blame the white man” instead. What a cop out.
Riott…personally, I believe that if these kids wanted to become citizens they should earn it, as my wife has done. I liked how the Germans looked at serving ones’ country back when I lived there — you either joined the military or you did social work. If these kids did something like this for the country, then I’d support granting citizenship. I think we should ask the same for our own men and women too, at age 18.
I’m still having a problem too though with the notion that somehow teenagers are better able to become good citizens.
Also, since we’re on the subject of immigration, absolutely NO discussion on this topic [where in concerns Mexico/America] should even take place without mentioning the big fat White elephant in the roon: NAFTA! Think of why it is that immigration from Mexico has never been a huge issue until NAFTA was signed into law back in the early 90’s.
Also, i find it rather telling in this debate that EMPLOYERS WHO DO ILLEGAL HIRING & RICH ASSHOLES WHO’RE TOO LAZY TO MOW THEIR OWN LAWNS & CLEAN UP THEIR OWN SHIT continue to get a free pass.
@frankieb The Dream Act provides citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants if they graduate college OR SERVE IN THE MILITARY! http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyin…
Wow, now I am mad, I missed out on the super white advantage. I work hard and save my money and don’t spend more than I earn, saving some to eventually retire on and try not to infringe on others’ lives.
Not a great life but I sleep well at night.
By the way, I am the child of immigrants, parents escaped out of Hungary in 1956, they spent 1.5 yrs in an internment camp in Germany. They weren’t allowed to work because so many Germans were out of work and they got the first available jobs, as it was their country. My parents got enough money from their families to buy a ride on a boat to Canada where they lived 3yrs waiting for the US immigration quota to open up to allow them entry. But before they were allowed in, they had to show they were self-supporting and/or had a job to support themselves. Try getting a job in a country you have never been to back then in that time period. But my grandmother was here, a legal citizen and she went around to different places and found a person sympathetic to my parent’s plight and guaranteed my father a job and I luckily was born here and not communist Hungary, which isn’t commie anymore, but still poor and not the great USA.
My parents were very proud to be Americans and always bought American goods and never spoke badly of this great country.
Immigrants didn’t “choose” to be born in Mexico (or any country, for that matter). Where you are born is not a “choice” made by you, nor is it a choice made by a great percentage of parents worldwide.
For example, how many people can afford to move to another country, right now? It is a fact that the majority of americans are living “paycheck to paycheck!”
By having children in school (immigrants and otherwise), there are jobs for Americans. Teachers and other school employees.
If you think that illegal immigrants are getting a “free education on your dime” then think again! The fact is that illegal immigrants work and pay taxes, with one small but VERY SIGNIFICANT difference! They don’t get income tax returns. Ask yourself, what happens to all the money that is deducted from illegal immigrants paychecks over their lifetime?
It is no “free ride” by any definition of the term.
This country was founded on immigrants, even illegal immigrants.
What would you do if you were born in a country where you could not support your family, even if you worked 24/7?
What would you do if you were born in a counrty where the government is so openly corrupt that it’s beyond repair?
What would you do if you could not get an education in your home country, for yourself or for your children?
How about living in a country where you either work for the drug cartels or they kill your family first (in front of you) and then kill you afterwards?
What about living illegally in the USA and not being able to say a word about how you are treated by the government, your employer, the police, or anyone else?
Who (in this country) is going to go out in the fields and pick produce in the 120 degree heat for minimum wage?