Update on Valedictorian’s Status

Last week, I reported on the situation of Arthur Mkoyan, a 4.0 student and valedictorian of Bullard High School in the Fresno area of California, who was scheduled for deportation back to Armenia – a country he left at two years old.

I’m happy to give an update that Senator Diane Feinstein has filed a private bill on his behalf that has halted the process as it moves through the legislative branch:

Feinstein’s bill also applies to Arthur’s mother and father, who is being held in detention in Arizona, said Scott Gerber, a Feinstein spokesman. Arthur’s 12-year-old brother is a U.S. citizen because he was born here, Gerber said.

In a prepared statement, Feinstein said: “This is a family that has deep roots in the community and has worked hard. The children have excelled in school. So I am introducing a private bill to ensure that they can stay in this country.”

Fresno Bee

Thanks to everyone who called the Senators’ offices. Please send Mrs. Feinstein a thank you message for taking the extra step to protect the entire Mkoyan family.

Photo Credit: Diana Baldrica/The Fresno Bee

 

Another Citizen Ensnared In ICE

Nothin’ to see here, move right along.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A Texas woman whose American-born daughter was deported to Mexico with the father and not recovered for three years is suing the federal government for $5 million.

Monica Castro, a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, accuses the U.S. Border Patrol of refusing to release her daughter to her when the girl’s father was arrested by agents in December 2003. Despite proving the child was born in the U.S., officials took the girl from Lubbock to the Texas-Mexico border. Castro did not find and regain custody of her daughter until three years later, according to Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents Castro.

Houston Chronicle

 

Valedictorian Faces Deportation

When Arthur Mkoyan was two years old, his family fled Armenia to escape the climate of Soviet Union rule. They’ve been working since 1992 to claim asylum in the United States while their son has excelled in the classroom. This week, the Fresno-area high school senior with a 4.0 GPA should be focusing on final exams and his Valedictorian speech to his fellow graduates; instead, he and his mother are facing deportation while the father sits in a migrant worker concentration camp in Arizona.

He and his mother, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing her job and income she needs, were given an extension to June 20 so Arthur could join his class at the ceremony, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Our goal is to enforce these court orders for deportations,” Kice said. But “if they come to us and they fully intend to respect the court order, we will work with them.”

Mark Silverman, director of immigration policy at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco, said Arthur Mkoyan’s case illustrates why Congress should have passed the Dream Act. The act would have allowed students who excelled in school and stayed out of trouble to become permanent residents and attend college or enlist in the military

“There’s something very wrong with the immigration laws when our government is deporting our best students,” Silverman said.

Fresno Bee

The Mkoyans are just one more example of the complexity of the situation many migrant worker families face in this era of stagnation when it comes to an overhaul of the immigration system in the U.S. They have a 12 year old son who was born here, therefore a citizen of this country, and a 17 year old eldest son who is top of his class and has already been accepted to UC-Davis in the fall to study Chemistry.

They are collateral damage to a government system that has dragged its feet over the years to unclog application processing, figure out what to do with mixed-status families, and diversify their procedures for treatment of migrant workers who don’t have criminal backgrounds. The default position of the U.S. government at this time is to either lock them up in a concentration camp where some are being killed through mistreatment, or deport them immediately regardless of family unity issues. This is inhumane and unacceptable.

Fortunately, local communities are banding together to exercise all legal options to keep these human rights violations at a minimum. In the case of Arthur Mkoyan, the media attention his case has received has initiated a wave of support.

Mkoyan, whose story was featured in Monday’s Bee, drew immediate support from a local Armenian advocacy group and fellow Bullard High students — and a promise from Rep. George Radanovich to take a second look at his request for help.

On Monday, Arthur said, he was showered with questions and offers of help from students and teachers at school, who hadn’t known of his plight. His home phone has been ringing off the hook as friends and supporters called. Television news reporters were trying to get an interview most of the day, Arthur said.

The shy 17-year-old with a 4.0 grade-point average said he is overwhelmed by the sudden attention.

“It makes me feel good people care,” he said.

Fresno Bee

The family has also reached out to Senator Diane Feinstein to see if she will support a private bill that, if passed, would give Arthur a green card and the ability to stay in the U.S. and finish his education. Even if it does not pass through Congress, though, the deportation order would be halted immediately upon submission of the bill. Please call her office, as well as the other listed public officials and ask them to support this worthy effort:

Senator Diane Feinstein
Fresno Office: (559) 485-7430
DC Office: (202) 224-3841>

Senator Barbara Boxer
Fresno Office: (559) 497-5109
DC Office: (202) 224-3553

And in this episode of Why Elections Matter, it should be noted that the Congressional Representative, George Radanovich-R (CA-19), has basically told them, “Tough Shit.”

Radanovich’s office acknowledged Monday that the family first sent a letter to the congressman on April 18. A few days later, a staff member told the family that its only option was a private bill to grant legal status to individuals, but that Radanovich doesn’t introduce private bills.

“He doesn’t feel he should be able to pick winners or losers and who should on an individual basis stay or leave,” said Spencer Pederson, Radanovich’s press secretary.

It should also be noted that Arthur Mkoyan’s deportation would be a non-issue if the Governator hadn’t vetoed California’s version of the D.R.E.A.M. Act (twice). The federal version of it is still languishing on Capitol Hill because lawmakers are too afraid to do anything substantive in an election year that might be construed (the horror!) as helpful to migrant workers and their families. I recommend bookmarking the group blog A Dream Deferred for updates on the bill’s status.

Crossposted at Booman Tribune, The Sanctuary, and Human Beams

 

New Mexico Senior Deported After Parking Violation

We must secure the borders so that parking violations across this great land will cease for eternity, ushering in a new era of freedom from Traffic Survival School….or something.

U.S. immigration officials deported a pregnant Roswell High School senior after she was pulled from class Wednesday by a local police officer regarding a traffic ticket issued days before.

According to Roswell Police Chief John Balderston, Karina Acosta, 18, was given several days to provide proper identification after being cited for a parking violation and driving without a license on Nov. 29 but failed to do so.

RHS Student Resource Officer Charlie Corn, a 10-year RPD veteran, removed Acosta from class Dec. 5 regarding the traffic violation and detained her at the school before notifying U.S. immigration officials of her illegal status, according to Balderston.

linkage

Searching across the web for more information on this particular incident has yielded nothing besides the linked article. The scenario, however, is being played out across the country. Local law enforcement agencies are now taking it upon themselves to act as INS agents. When it comes to their involvement on school grounds, tension between officials becomes inevitable.

Roswell Independent School District Assistant Superintendent Mike Kakuska said the RISD has officially protested Acosta’s arrest with the INS and the Mexican Consulate.

“We are very, very concerned as a public school as to what happened the other day,” said Kakuska, addressing a group of about 50 parents who gathered at RHS Friday morning. “The police officer, without our knowledge, had this young lady brought into his office here at school and the detain orders were issued through him, not the Roswell schools.”

I’ve placed a phone call to Gov. Richardson’s office to see if he has any comments on the case.

tip of the hat to commenter Larry in New Mexico

 

Solidarity With Catalina High Student Protestors

We need more of this to raise the awareness that the U.S. is operating under a new era of Operation Wetback.

Some 100 to 125 Catalina High Magnet School students protested outside Tucson police headquarters Tuesday after a fellow student was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and he and his family were turned over to U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Border Patrol returned the family of four to Mexico because they admitted to being in the United States illegally for six years.

linkage

This is just one incident out of many where people are being systematically deported without even a flinch from the U.S. government. That’s exactly what the hardliners are salivating over, but they are showing their true colors when the victims of banishment are young people.

Xicanopwr fills us in on another abhorrent example

Kelsey Peterson, a 25-year-old sixth-grade math teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Middle School, accused of running away with an undocumented 13-year-old boy to plan some sort of life together in Mexico was arrested on Friday night in Mexicali, Mexico, on the California border.

The boy was released to relatives in Mexico and is being reported that he will not be allowed to come back to US because of his immigration status. The only way he will be able to allow back is if he is needed to testify. To make matters worse, the family will now be deported according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Tim Counts, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would not say whether Fernando’s parents would come under scrutiny for their immigration status, saying the department does not discuss prospective cases.

more from XP

There should be a moratorium on human roundups and workplace raids until Congress gets off its collective asses and decides what it is going to do about the millions of people living in the shadows of U.S. society who are only looking for an opportunity to provide for themselves and their families.

The movement of peoples across this earth is never a crime and the U.S. needs to stop acting like they’re a bunch of stuck up country club dwellers that are too arrogant to see how shameful they are acting towards the rest of the world with their policies and attitudes.

My hope is that the students involved in today’s protest will grasp deep inside themselves that they have power to end the farce of American Exceptionalism by demanding basic dignity and justice for all human beings no matter which plot of land they were born.

 

Where is Pedro Guzman?

Hopefully alive, somewhere in the vicinity of Tijuana, Baja California. He is the latest victim of Operation Wetback v2.007

The family of a mentally disabled man claims that the federal and local governments mistakenly had an American citizen deported and said U.S. officials should help find him in Mexico.

Relatives of Pedro Guzman, 29, are suing the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Los Angeles federal court.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit this week over what the civil rights group contends was the wrongful deportation of a developmentally disabled man.

linkage

Of course, ICE is spinning their actions faster than the wheels of my nana’s shopping cart at CostCo.

“ICE only processes persons for removal when all available credible evidence suggests the person is an alien,” ICE officials said. “That process was followed here and ICE has no reason to believe that it improperly removed Pedro Guzman.”

linkage

This is a chilling story, on top of all the rest of the ICE-covered atrocities committed everyday (how’s that for a pun?) It’s hitting hard personally, because if one were to alter the age of Pedro by a few years and change half of his name, it would be me. While his disability probably factored heavily in this particular situation, Latin@s are being deported physically and verbally everyday.

So now’s your chance, progressive blogosphere.

This issue could use some bigger coverage beyond the Latino blog borders. Steven D at Booman Tribune has already stepped up to the plate (in fact, he alerted me to it). Will you be the next one to stand in solidarity?

(Hopefully) To be updated:

The Mex Files, Disability Studies – Temple U., UnSpace, Dallas-Fort Worth Immigration Lawyer, And We Shall March, Intersections, BadCopNews, Courage Campaign, TBogg, Rook’s Rant, Guanabee, Left End of the Dial, kid oakland, The Liberal OC, Calitics, Daily Kos, The Latin Americanist, Tejas Cubbie, Why Now?, Beautiful Horizons, Crime Scene KC, Outside the Beltway, The Gimp Parade, Fetch me my axe, States Without Nations, The Bullwinkle Blog, Hullabaloo, scootmandubious, serpentine smile, The Latino Body, nazarian, onefivetwo, cannablog, PREGUNTAVERAll Spin Zone