[Vision2020] Undocumented Immigrant Graduates from UCLA School of Law
Dave
tiedye at turbonet.com
Sat Nov 27 20:36:29 PST 2010
I think the S.W. U.S. should be returned to Mexico, since we stole it
from them in the first place.
Dave
On 11/27/2010 04:51 PM, Donovan Arnold wrote:
> I really think that Mexico should be a territory of the US like
> Purerto Rico, so its people can be US citizens, pay taxes, and be
> protected from the violent drug gangs that dominate their country.
> How we are treating Mexicans today is very exploitative and inhumane.
> Everyone deserves an opportunity to improve their situation.
> Donovan Arnold
>
> --- On *Sat, 11/27/10, Reggie Holmquist
> /<reggieholmquist at u.boisestate.edu>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Reggie Holmquist <reggieholmquist at u.boisestate.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Undocumented Immigrant Graduates from
> UCLA School of Law
> To: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
> Cc: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Saturday, November 27, 2010, 4:05 PM
>
> The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act:
>
> This bill would provide certain inadmissible or deportable alien
> students who graduate from US high schools, who are of good moral
> character, arrived in the U.S. as minors, and have... been in the
> country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's
> enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency
> if they complete two years in the military or two years at a four
> year institution of higher learning. The alien students would
> obtain temporary residency for a six year period. Within the six
> year period, a qualified student must have "acquired a degree from
> an institution of higher education in the United States or [have]
> completed at least 2 years, in good standing, in a program for a
> bachelor's degree or higher degree in the United States," or have
> "served in the uniformed services for at least 2 years and, if
> discharged, [have] received an honorable discharge."
>
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com
> <http://us.mc381.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=thansen@moscow.com>>
> wrote:
>
> Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times at:
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tobar-20101126,0,2730603,full.column
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Undocumented UCLA law grad is in a legal bind
>
> His family crossed the border illegally when he was an
> 8-year-old, but he
> has done everything right since then. Will his adopted country
> now do
> right by him?
> Hector Tobar
>
> November 26, 2010
>
> Ever since he was 8 years old, Luis Perez has dedicated his
> life to
> becoming an American.
>
> In grade school, days after his arrival from Mexico, he
> studied hard to
> master English — it quickly displaced Spanish as his dominant
> language.
>
> As a teenager he woke up every morning at 5:30 a.m. for a long
> bus trip
> across the San Fernando Valley, away from a neighborhood with
> a bad gang
> problem, to a high school where being a studious young man
> didn't make him
> a social outcast.
>
> When he eventually made it to college, it was the U.S.
> Constitution that
> grabbed hold of him, especially the Bill of Rights. And this
> year, his
> study of American institutions culminated with his graduation
> from UCLA
> School of Law.
>
> Today, at age 29, Luis Perez has the right to call himself a
> juris doctor.
> But he can't yet call himself an American. In fact, because
> he's an
> undocumented immigrant, it will take an act of Congress to
> change that.
> But that hasn't stopped him from trying.
>
> "People used to tell me, 'Why go to college if you can't get a
> real job
> when you graduate,'" he said. With no right to work for a
> large company or
> law firm, it seemed that only jobs in construction and or
> yardwork awaited
> him, no matter how educated he was.
>
> "If I had listened to those people, I wouldn't have done
> anything with my
> life," he told me.
>
> Perez is the first undocumented immigrant to graduate from
> UCLA's law
> school. He's taking the bar exam in January. "I'm spending my
> Christmas
> with the books," he told me.
>
> If he passes that test, with its questions about contracts,
> property,
> torts, criminal law and many other topics, Perez will have
> completed a
> most unlikely journey.
>
> His story is at once inspiring and also maddening, because
> it's a reminder
> of just how broken our immigration system is. Among other
> things, its
> failed policies have given us hundreds of thousands of people
> like Perez
> who are Americans, culturally speaking, but who don't have the
> legal right
> to live here.
>
> Perez was born in Guadalajara. He remembers going hungry
> there, and also
> teachers who doled out corporal punishment. "I value education
> because I
> had a really bad experience with education in Mexico," he told me.
>
> Then, as now, a better life and low-wage jobs awaited his
> parents on the
> U.S. side of the border.
>
> But there was no legal way for poor families like his to get
> here — to
> obtain U.S. tourist visas, residents must present proof that
> they have
> bank accounts, property or a business.
>
> "There is no line for people like my family," Perez said. His
> grandmother's been trying to get a tourist visa to visit her
> grandchildren
> in the U.S. for 20 years without success, he said.
>
> Growing up in the Valley, Perez has always known that he and
> his family
> were living on the margins of the law.
>
> "It was traumatic," he said of his surreptitious border
> crossing, near San
> Diego. "Those memories are hard to forget. I was old enough to
> know that
> it wasn't a safe thing to do."
>
> He saw it all through the eyes of an 8-year-old. He remembers
> the "coyote"
> smuggler who picked him up and carried him over a shallow
> creek. Once
> across, he spent an hour hidden inside a large tractor wheel.
>
> In L.A., his father worked construction, his mother as a
> nanny. And as he
> grew into an adolescent, a teenager and finally into a young
> adult, Perez
> looked to anyone who met him like just another smart kid from
> the Valley.
>
> But in the back of his mind, he knew he didn't belong. So he
> worked his
> tail off to prove that he did. And to understand how he might
> eventually
> belong, he studied the law.
>
> "Most students experience law school as a trade school," said Saul
> Sarabia, an administrator at UCLA School of Law. "They learn
> doctrines,
> rules and apply them to a set of theoretical situations. But
> in Luis'
> case, his entire future turns on whether a law can become
> reality."
>
> The great hope for Perez, and for thousands of others like
> him, is the
> Dream Act, a bill that would grant a path to legal residency for
> undocumented immigrants who graduate from college or serve
> honorably in
> the military.
>
> President Obama has called on Congress to pass the Dream Act
> before the
> end of the year.
>
> Unfortunately, there are also many media commentators, and an
> army of
> Internet scribes, dedicated to slurring the name of people
> like Luis
> Perez. They want to convince you that the Dream Act is a bad idea.
>
> For them, no insult is too extreme, no stereotype too crude,
> because of
> the single word they can attach to Perez's name: illegal. They
> make up
> false statistics, and focus on the crimes of the few to taint
> the many.
>
> Perez has heard all their arguments, and he's ready with a
> lawyerly riposte.
>
> "Being undocumented is not a criminal issue, it's a civil
> issue," he said.
> "The law sees us not as lawbreakers but as people without
> legal status."
>
> While he was still in high school, Perez lobbied state
> representatives for
> the passage of California Assembly Bill 540, which granted
> affordable,
> in-state college tuition to undocumented immigrants.
>
> After AB 540 became law in 2001, he enrolled at UCLA and
> eventually earned
> a B.A. in political science and then his law degree. He became
> a student
> leader and worked construction jobs on the weekends to help
> pay for his
> tuition. (He still holds a construction job, in part to pay
> off $3,000 in
> law school debt.)
>
> The state Supreme Court upheld AB 540 earlier this month. To some
> Californians, giving undocumented immigrants an affordable college
> education is an act of generosity that we cash-strapped
> Californians can't
> afford.
>
> But really, it's the smart thing to do.
>
> The Dream Act would be another intelligent investment in our
> collective
> future. We'd get even more people like Perez, because the
> Dream Act would
> reward young people for making the choices he's made since the
> was 8:
> choosing education over ignorance, service over apathy.
>
> "I'm not asking for anything," he said of his hope for legal
> status. "This
> is something I've earned. I've graduated from school, served
> my community
> and tried my best to reach my potential."
>
> Even if he passes the bar, Luis Perez will probably need the
> Dream Act to
> become a practicing lawyer. Until then, he'll be in the same
> limbo he's
> always been in: an English-speaking, L.A.-raised kid, now
> educated in
> American law but unable to be an American.
>
> For the time being he's embraced a slogan chanted by immigrant
> students at
> protests from Washington to Phoenix and Sacramento:
> "Undocumented and
> unafraid."
>
>
> -----------------------
>
> Luis Perez, who in May became the first undocumented immigrant
> to graduate
> from UCLA School of law, came to L.A. from Mexico at the age
> of 8 and made
> getting a good education his top priority. But because he's
> not in the
> country legally, he may not be able to practice law even if he
> passes the
> bar.
>
> http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-11/57893363.jpg
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Support the DREAM Act of 2010.
>
> http://www.facebook.com/DreamAct2010
>
> The DREAM act would benefit students who are currently
> undocumented in the
> United States of America. The Dream Act is based upon earned
> legalization.
> The DREAM Act is Education for our future generation of
> leaders. Please
> Support the DREAM Act of 2010.
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects
> it to change
> and the Realist adjusts his sails."
>
> - Unknown
>
>
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