Posts Tagged ‘deportation’

Why Are We Deporting Electrical Engineers from America?

// August 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Immigration

…And instead, importing engineers from India to sign-up for the often-exploitative H-1B worker programs?

Watch this video of Herta Llusho, who is being deported next week. She was educated in the United States and is currently studying Electrical Engineering in college. But instead of cultivating Herta’s talents and reaping investments from the taxpayer dollars that went into her K-12 education, the United States would much rather deport her to Albania–a country that she does not know.

It doesn’t make any sense.

And just a shoutout to Jane Hamsher for her comments regarding Herta:

Good luck Herta, and thanks for posting your story here. Please keep us up on what is happening.

I know that the DREAM Act could pass tomorrow on its own, but House and other coalition advocates want to lump it in with a lot of other stuff that has now been tabled until next year (and I’ll believe Rahm Emanuel will let an immigration bill onto the floor in an election year when pigs fly).

They should sever the DREAM Act and pass it now. With people like you getting senselessly deported, it is cruel not to do so.

Not a surprise that the administration announced that it would not take up immigration until next year on the heels of the Sotomayor confirmation. It was a great moment but the Hispanic Caucus and other immigration reform advocates should not pacified into inaction because of it.

Free the DREAM Act.

It’s hard to see people fighting so hard to stay here when some of us just want to leave desperately. Every day in this purgatory just kills me a little bit more. I would gladly switch places with Herta if I was allowed to do so. But I am lucky that if I was deported tomorrow, I’ll have a great island vacation on American taxpayer money before heading over to Canada for my skilled worker visa. There’s nothing to fear besides the status quo (and the countless days in detention).

We need to stop the deportation of all DREAM Act students NOW and pass the DREAM Act.

I promise to leave. Gladly.

Stop the Deportation of Herta Llusho!

// August 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Immigration

Herta Llusho, a 19 year old college freshman and a National Honors Society high school graduate, will be deported on August 19th, unless Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano intervenes.

Please do the following to help us stop her deportation:

1. Join the facebook group for immediate updates: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=111108019510

2. Sign petition which will be hand-delivered to targets: http://www.change.org/actions/view/stop_deportation_of_dream_student_herta_llusho

3. Use SEIU Click to Call Action Tool to call DHS: http://call.seiu.org/9/hertadhs

4. Call her senators, you can find numbers on facebook page.

Call Senator Carl Levin at (202) 224-6221.  Urge him to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta’s deportation.

Call Senator Stabenow at (202) 224-4822.  Urge her to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta’s deportation.

Call Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick at (202) 225-2261. Urge her to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta’s deportation.

See http://dreamactivist.org/save-herta for more up to date news and actions.
Remember to forward these actions to your friends!!

Thanks.

We win some. We lose many more.

// July 11th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Immigration

As part of the weekly DREAM Act series on Change.org, I just read quite a moving story about a couple that now has to leave their home, simply because one spouse had been brought here at the age of 13, accrued illegal presence and had no chance of legalizing their status, not even through marriage to a U.S. citizen. The U.S. citizen has to abandon their home along with her.

Some of us don’t need to go to Jamaica or Bahrain to see the nasty consequences of U.S. immigration laws–we see them in the stories of people like Brian and Anya, whose only crime was to fall in love. And now they may also have to deliver their (future U.S. citizen) baby in unsafe conditions:

I cry because there are people with the power to destroy other people’s lives in our government that have become obsessed with their power and have no compassion. Sirce Elliott, the Assistant Chief Counsel in this case, had the legal power to postpone the deportation until after the birth of the baby. This would have hurt no one and would have helped insure the safe delivery of the baby. When asked if she would show mercy and allow this, she replied that there was no way that she was going to allow that to happen. She had initially agreed to allow 60 days from the final court date for voluntary departure, but when she saw that the judge had set the court date in July, she changed it to 30 days to make sure Anya didn’t have the opportunity to have a safe delivery in the U.S. This makes no difference on the citizenship of the child. My son can go to the U.S. Embassy and fill out a form wherever the child is born, and she will be a U.S. citizen. So I can’t understand why this lady is being so hateful. Anya has done nothing wrong and has always done everything the courts have instructed her to do. All this will do is perhaps put a poor innocent baby’s life in jeopardy if she needs health care that is unavailable.

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Musings

// July 8th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Immigration

The last few weeks were thoroughly exhausting. Between the long week in D.C., the non-gay drama (highly boring) of my father and some promigrant bloggers, a horrible court decision against us, the exhausting but exhilarating National DREAM graduation and efforts to save Walter Lara, I am just about ready to move on.

But I made a commitment, hence I am a hero to some, a burden to my mother and I happen to stand in the way of my own dreams by staying here.

Something still troubles me–the way SEIU swept in to co-opt the work of undocumented student leaders the last week of Walter Lara’s deportation. Lets be honest and forthright–Walter would have gotten a stay of deportation without their new media efforts. It is absolutely outrageous that SWER did not get credit for all their hard-work. DreamActivist could have done more had their hands not been tied by lack of software (people are laying eggs on the contract as I write). Of course, the limits and top-down know-nothing nature of SEIU became more apparent when their action this week to sustain momentum asked supporters to ‘Call Congress’ for the DREAM Act. That is such a bright idea! Why didn’t we think of it before now?! Oh, this time, instead of calling our Senators directly, we would have to give SEIU our information in order to call. SEIU should stick to raiding real unions to bring home the bacon. Oops, I guess the real labor movement opposes that too. No offense to Josh Bernstein; his work and support for DREAM students is always welcome.

I just wonder where these DC orgs go when a non-honors student is facing deportation, when Sarjina Emy stayed in detention for two years and finally broke down and went back to Bangladesh, and when a case does not look winnable. Why are some immigrants disposable? My mother never went to college, is a janitor who supports the entire family and pays thousands in taxes; my grandmother does not speak English, never worked or paid taxes in this country, cashes in her social security checks; I have a Master’s but don’t make any financial contributions, hence don’t pay taxes and can’t stand this country–Who would you deport?

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Stop the Deportation of Walter Lara

// June 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Immigration

“…doesn’t matter what they tell you. YOU belong here.”

Advice

DO NOT SIGN A VOLUNTARY DEPARTURE. EVER.

Walter Lara, age 23, came to the United States from Argentina 20 years ago. Unless Congress or the Department of Homeland Security intervenes in his case, he will be required to leave the U.S. by July 6th.

Walter, having lived in the U.S. since he was three, speaks English without any trace of an accent. Miami is the only home he remembers. Walter graduated from Miami Central Senior High School in 2004 with a 4.7 grade point average, fourth in his class. He dedicated over 1,000 hours of service to his community.

After high school, Walter attended the Honors College of Miami Dade Wolfson Campus. He earned an Associates of Arts degree in Computer Animation having maintained a 3.7 cumulative grade point average and used this education to do freelance web design. On the side, he has found time to be involved in sports and teach himself many aspects of computing. Walter Lara has never broken the law and continues to be an active and important member of his community. He aspires to work for Pixar as a graphic designer, but without a Social Security number or visa, and therefore unable to attend a 4-year college, he has worked instead as a cable installer for Direct-TV.

On February 17, 2009, he was on his way to Fisher Island for an install when he was stopped by I.C.E. officials. When he admitted to them that he is undocumented, Walter was arrested and jailed for 20 days. He now faces deportation within days to a country he has never known.

Walter can probably get his case re-opened on that grounds that he never received proper counsel. In the meantime, please take the following actions to keep Walter Lara in this country:

1. Sign the online petition

2. Join the support group on Facebook

3. Sign and send this letter to my members of Congress demanding that they do something!!

4. Send a letter of support to mjlacayo@aol.com

More footage of Walter Lara will be up soon.


USCIS Priority: Deport 11-Year Olds

// June 12th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Immigration, Moron of the Week

I have this urge to put USCIS on the Morons of the Week every single week but alas, we have to pass on the title every now and then.

What have they done this time? Try to deport a 11 year old to a country she does not know and not because she is in the United States illegally.

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Her mom and dad are legally allowed to stay at their home in Georgia, but an eleven-year-old child has been ordered to leave the country by July 23.

Ewelina Bledniak’s parents say it’s a paperwork mistake, made by the lawyer they hired when she was two and they moved to the states.

Dad Hubert is now a U.S. citizen who owns a tile installation business in their small town. Mom Agnes is a legal resident going through the process to become a citizen. But Ewelina’s plight came up when the Bledniaks applied for a green card for their daughter.

Immigration officials found her paperwork wasn’t in order and told her she had to leave by the 23rd, lest she be thrown out of the country and sent “home” to Poland. It’s a home she hasn’t seen in nine years.

Her parents are going to take her to Poland on the 20th to meet with the U.S. Embassy there and hopefully get the issue straightened out, but it’s already creating a hardship. The family has to leave their jobs during a downturn in the economy, and they don’t know when Ewelina will be allowed home. At eleven, they can’t very well leave her alone across the world. She may lose a whole year of school, and she doesn’t speak Polish – attending school there won’t help.

I feel so much safer now. Really.

And this is all due to an immigration lawyer’s mistake. It’s too bad these immigration lawyers aren’t deported each time they toy with our lives. Nancy was also rendered ‘illegal’ by a forgetful lawyer, Mohammad would be legal today had it not been for $20 and two cases of legal malpractice, and so many more students whose stories we might never get to hear.

Why is this story making media waves? Well, the immigrants are Polish, not Mexican.

The good thing is that she is not 18 so she has not started accruing illegal presence so she won’t face the awful 10-year ban.

It’s simply a minor inconvenience in her case, not a life-altering change that many who are deported have to undergo.

Warning: If You Were Born on a Military Base, You Might Be Deportable!

// April 22nd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Immigration

The US Constitution states that a US citizen can’t be deported unless he has committed treason or terrorism. Not one part of the US Government is looking into my case of a US citizen being deported. I was sent back to England where I have no family and had to live in the streets until I was able to get into a Hostel a few weeks later. I signed a wavier for deportation under great direst because they told me I would be deported anyway. I didn’t think a US Federal agent would lie or not do his job.

-Kevin Dale Cartee, Deported U.S. Citizen

Something is seriously wrong when a country deports its own citizens either through error or some misguided attempt to enforce immigration laws.

Meet Kevin Dale Cartee. He recently got deported back to the United Kingdom. Why? He happened to be born to a U.S. citizen and military officer on an army base.

Kevin holds a Citizen Born Abroad of a US Citizen certificate (DS-1359). But the United States could care less. Everyone from the officials at ICE to the office of Senator Chambliss were less interested in hearing his story and investigating his claims than simply deporting him back to where he was born.

In an email correspondence, Kevin describes his immigration nightmare:

I was pick up by (ICE) immigration on 14th FEB 2007 from Telfair State Prison in Georgia and taken to the Atlanta county jail where (ICE) leases part of the jail for immigration and kept there until they sent me to south Georgia to a private facility, which held only people for immigration. I stayed there a while until I was sent to Gadsden Alabama county jail and from there I was picked up and taken back to Atlanta, Georgia to be put on a plane and sent back to England. That was on the 19th of July 2007. The only officer I can remember is Agent Jeremy Blankly who was a federal officer with (ICE) who said he checked everywhere he could and there was no record of me at all ever being let into the USA legally.

The officer either lied or did not do a thorough-enough job. It turns out that Kevin Dale Cartee was a citizen of the United States by virtue of the fact that his father was a U.S. citizen serving in the USAF and shortly after Kevin was born on a U.S. military base, his Dad had filed a citizens born abroad certificate. It would have taken only a phone call to the Department of State to confirm this fact and prevent this wrongful deportation.

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A Crude But Straight-Forward Message

// April 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Immigration

It rhymes nicely.
Just about sums it up.

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