Immigrants seeking a better life flatten fences all over the world

EL PASO — Americans have become accustomed to the startling images of desperate people climbing their way over chain link fences into the United States, a country they cannot access legally. But that same image of the plight of undocumented immigrants in a constant struggle to improve their lives also can be seen in other countries all over the world. Dr. Said Saddiki, an associate professor from the University of Fes Morocco and a Fulbright Program scholar at UTEP, is studying the flow of undocumented immigrants from Morocco to Spain. “Most people, and the mass media, use the term illegal immigrations,” said Saddiki. “The Border International official document, the official framework of the United Nations, avoids the term illegal immigrations because of its negative connotation.

A Dream worth 30 days of hunger

WASHINGTON – Lucina Martinez usually stands a little over 5 feet, but fasting for 30 days had her in a wheelchair as she rushed from office to office through the Senate office buildings this week. Martinez hoped her hunger strike would draw attention to the need of illegal immigrant youths like herself for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2010. Martinez broke the fast Thursday after the Senate version of the bill was tabled. The Senate may take up the House version of the bill next week. “We saw it as a victory to have more time to pressure the senators, to speak to them about our stories and why they should support the dream act,” Martinez said.

Immigrant high school graduates seek a pathway to U.S. citizenship

EL PASO, Texas — Many of the 65,000 illegal immigrants who graduate from high school in the U.S. every year live under the entrapment radar, risking deportation at any time as they attempt to attend college or serve in the U.S. military services. According to statistics from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), most of these students in all grade levels have been raised in America, in American public school systems, American cities. Many only speak English and the American culture is what they know.  They have little left of their culture of origin. “It’s a very sad experience to forget where you came from because you’re accustomed to life here.  You could hardly remember that you came here from another country,” said a student who wishes to remain anonymous.  The student at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is an illegal immigrant because, like the thousands of illegal high school students who graduate every year in the U.S., this student was not brought to America by choice.  The parents made that choice. “It’s a difficult situation.

Immigration: A love story

CHICAGO — “Up, up with education! Down, down with deportation!” chanted a crowd of 30 or so Latin American youths holding hand-painted signs advocating the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would grant “restricted” residency to children of immigrants who pursued a higher education or military service. I watched as students took turns telling their grueling Cinderella stories, each one starting with, “My name is Juan or Maria and I’m undocumented and unafraid,” then stumbling over words, pausing to apologize for being nervous, and continuing to spill forth their love for America. At the end of the rally they ended with the same chant, but the girl with the mic mixed up the words and instead said, “Up, up with deportation! Down, down with edu… I mean, no, up, up with education.” In effect, it just showed how much they really do need a way into college.

La trajeron de pequeña y ahora es difícil poder estudiar

CHICAGO — Cristina no puede continuar con su educación. Sus padres decidieron emigrar ilegalmente a los Estados Unidos cuando ella solamente tenía tres años. Completar una carrera universitaria siendo indocumentada es muy difícil, ya que el costo de las universidades en los Estados Unidos es muy alto. Además, al no contar con un número de seguro social, ella no puede solicitar becas o préstamos estudiantiles. Cristina, de 21 años, nacida en Jerez, Zacatecas, (no quiso ser identificada con su apellido), asiste a una universidad pero sólo toma clases generales porque aún no está segura cuál carrera le gustaría estudiar, y admite que pagar por la universidad ha sido una barrera.“Mi papá y yo somos los que estamos pagando de nuestra bolsa”.

El temor de ser contado

Los inmigrantes discrepan acerca de dar sus datos
CHICAGO — José Adrián, un inmigrante indocumentado de Zacatecas, dijo que a pesar de no tener papeles, participó en el censo que cuenta la población de Estados Unidos cada 10 años. José Adrián trabaja para una compañía de seguros médicos, y ha vivido en Estados Unidos por 17 años. “Se usa (el censo) para asignar fondos, y creo que es un beneficio para mi vecindad, para mi ciudad, y donde vivo”, explicó el zacatecano. Dijo que intenta criar a sus niños aquí en Chicago, por lo que quiere que su comunidad reciba la mayor cantidad de recursos posibles. Según información federal sobre el censo, los datos que se obtienen sirven al gobierno para decidir dónde se repartirán unos 400 mil millones de dólares cada año en servicios sociales como hospitales y escuelas.

Luchando por un sueño

CHICAGO — Los estudiantes indocumentados en los Estados Unidos actualmente están atrapados en una paradoja legal, aseveró Roberto González, actor del reporte Young Lives on Hold: The College Dreams of Undocumented Students, publicado en abril del 2009. Edgar Chávez, estudiante de 21 años de la Universidad de Illinois Chicago (UIC), quiere que la pesadilla en la que esta viviendo termine de una vez pues tiene miedo de que su mayor sueño, que es terminar su carrera, sea afectado por su situación migratoria. Chávez tenía 12 años cuando llegó a Chicago con su madre y hermano; su padre ya llevaba dos años en los Estados Unidos trabajando para poder ofrecerles mejores condiciones de vida. Nacido en Monterrey, México, Chávez contó que su traslado a este país fue sencillo. Edgar Chávez y su familia cruzaron el borde fronterizo en la camioneta de su tía, quien es ciudadana estadounidense y reside en Texas.

Deportation looms over some young Americans

NOGALES, Ariz. — U.S. citizens can be deported, so says the law, if their non-citizen parents are deported and they are under 18 years of age. That’s what almost happened to Maria, one of my students, and her 10-year old brother. Keeping her spot at our school was so important to them that when her mom was deported they decided to leave Maria, then a high school junior, and her brother here. Her mom was making pretty good money cleaning the houses of Anglos in Nogales, Arizona, where a domestic cleaning-lady employment underground thrives.

DREAM Act: Hope for Undocumented Students

Lea esta historia en español

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Irene Castellon, 19, is a bright, beautiful young woman studying Spanish at East Tennessee State University. She hopes to use her Spanish degree to help Latino Americans make a better life for themselves. Yet a year ago, college wasn’t an option for her because of her immigration status. Currently, undocumented immigrants in the U.S. cannot receive financial aid for college.

You can’t go home again

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico –They’re back, still tired, still poor, still yearning, huddling in line in the hundred-degree sun in the northern reaches of the Chihuahuan desert not far from the nearly dry cement ditch that splits the heart of a bicultural community into two alien political entities, El Paso to the north and Juárez to the south. Still tired, still poor, still yearning, on this fiery afternoon in early June several dozen men and one Maria linger in line outside the ground-floor office of Coordinación de Atención a Migrantes at city hall, an office Juárez mayor Jose Reyes Ferríz opened last November to orient repatriated migrants and keep them safe from an established industry of cheating money changers, hookers and other swindlers. This modest and very transitory halfway-haven, a single room with two cubicles, a dozen chairs and two telephones on a corner table, welcomes the disoriented deportees back, gives them temporary identification papers, lunch money and a bus ticket away from the preying lure of Juárez, away from the tempting border, further down into Mexico, back to their home towns. The faces in the queue are not waiting faces. Tired eyes tighten into lizard eyes in faces that strain to make an effort to look for cover in case they need shelter.