A Deportation Deferred

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says her “‘hands are tied” on immigration reform, but some activists have been successful in delaying deportation of young people.

Posted Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Erin Rosa

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  • A Deportation Deferred

 

 

Janet Napolitano speaks at the Center For American Progress.
In her first major speech on immigration since becoming the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano spoke at the Center for American Progress on Friday about the need for immigration reform, noting “how difficult the current laws can be on families.”

 

But when it comes to the thousands of undocumented young people who were brought into the United States when they were babies or small children, Napolitano also lamented in a recent interview with Think Progress that “our hands are tied” until legislation can be passed to address the issue.

Not so, if we look at recent cases of those who arrived here when they were young. Young people, propelled by successful community organizing, have teamed up with lawmakers and other national groups to pressure the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to defer deportation proceedings for at least four students this year alone.

These young people have been called DREAMers after the proposed Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, federal legislation that would create special rules for immigrants who entered the United States before they were 16. These young people, under the DREAM Act, would have the option to eventually become citizens after meeting certain requirements. Activist groups argue that undocumented youth deserve a path to citizenship and shouldn’t be punished for an immigration status for which they are not responsible.

Currently, there is no legal distinction between immigrants who willingly crossed U.S. borders as adults and those who entered the United States as children. Walter Lara, now 23, entered the country when he was only 3. Lara grew up and pursued his dreams without papers or a social security number with no path to citizenship. Taha Mowla, an 18-year-old high school graduate, was brought to the United States from Bangladesh when he was a toddler and doesn’t even know the Bengali alphabet. Both of these young people managed to defer deportation, at least, for now.

After excelling at high school, Lara graduated with honors from Miami Dade College in 2006. Lara was accosted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and later given deportation papers, forcing him to move back to Argentina, a country he didn’t remember and with which he had no current connections. In July, Lara, who by then was living in Florida, was set to be deported on Independence Day weekend.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been working with the social networking site DREAMactivist.org, which has been on the frontlines working to pressure the government to halt the deportations. The SEIU took up Lara’s cause, even posting the following YouTube video in which he says he will be deported:

“I will be deported this July 4 weekend, unless the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano steps in and stops my deportation,” Lara wrote on an SEIU blog during the campaign. “I know that Secretary Napolitano will hear our calls.”

On July 1, five days before Lara was set to be deported, voicemail boxes at the DHS were full of messages from activists pleading to delay Lara’s deportation. Hours later, on the same day, Lara was given as least one more year to stay in the country.

Mowla achieved the same results just a few weeks later. He was set to be deported on July 29. The federal government halted his deportation five days before that date, thanks in part to another massive campaign spurred by Lara’s success.

“Their success was based on their own organizing through their personal networks and the use of social networking sites,” says Ali Jost with SEIU, who specializes on immigration matters. Jost has assisted with numerous efforts to stop pending deportations against undocumented youths.

“Their campaigns started with Facebook group pages, which provided SEIU with a base of supporters to organize and channel their activism in the form of calls and letters to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Jost says.

But the success of the cases of Lara and Mowla are just two in the sea of undocumented immigrants that came here as children.

“It’s a challenge because Department of Homeland Security’s job, unfortunately, is to enforce the broken laws as they are on the books,” Jost says. “Until we can fix those broader laws, it’s critical that youth advocates get involved in our online efforts to support these DREAMers and show the real costs of our broken immigration system.”

It’s currently unknown when the DREAM Act, introduced to the Senate in March, will come to a vote. Napolitano acknowledged in her immigration speech last week that the Obama administration plans to tackle immigration reform sometime in 2010.

Erin Rosa is an associate editor at Campus Progress. Follow her on Twitter.

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