Thanks YB. Your support is invaluable! :)

I do understand your point -- I wouldn't wave the flag of my country at a protest but maybe some people communicate cultural pride differently. I don't think it means that they don't love America. Anyway, there is nothing much to fear since majority of immigrants are assimilating faster than ever before. Here is the study:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--assimilationrepor0513may13,0,5276449.story

I don't really believe in the 'invasion' of immigrants theory. At best, it has already been done over and over with the coming of new groups of immigrants. We have such a unique culture, but that is due to the fact that it has never really been stable or fixed--as new immigrants came, we borrowed and made a country with a rich amalgamation of cultural history. The demographics of this country are changing with more Latinos but change is a part of history and I am not too concerned about that aspect of things.

Thanks for sharing your family history btw. It's always nice to communicate with people who also have such diverse backgrounds.

Well, there are migrant workers that do go home when jobs dry up, which many anti-illegal immigrants advocates don't understand. I am glad you do. Then there are undocumented workers who stay and make a life here for the sake of their children. And many who have applied for asylum and have to wait a decade to hear on their case while their children grow up American. And of course, the 45% of people who enter this country legally and just overstay their visas, working under the table and paying taxes. It's just not a homogeneous group of people so I don't think that any homogeneous set of laws should apply i.e. my entire family is full of citizen, legal residents than undocumented little me. Now I am sponsored and awaiting the DREAM Act as well, and it would make no sense to send me 10000 miles away for 10 years, separating me from the only family I know when the only act I am guilty of is 'illegal presence' - a misdemeanor. That's what I really fear--ripping up families, especially mixed families with legal resident parents or citizen children.

I am not seeing why you are placing such an emphasis on 'assimilation.' That happens in steps--some of our legal immigrants never assimilate either. My citizen grandmother still doesn't really understand English. In my book, it is fine to have dual national pride. I have a flag of my country of origin in my room; it doesn't mean I am not assimilated and ipod generation. Why shouldn't people hold on to their symbols of cultural pride? It isn't against the law to do so and doesn't make anyone less American. We are a country full of immigrants from all places on the planet anyway. Given time and generations, people tend to go the way of assimilating anyway. I don't see it as a huge issue.

I was referring to your labeling of 'illegal alien' as 'those people,' which is a bit offensive to us since it is not a homogeneous group of people. Being illegal is not a permanent condition either--no human being can be an illegal alien; it is a reference to entry and presence, not personality and characteristic. I oppose people migrating here without proper documentation but I also don't like the devastating impact that ICE crackdowns on our communities and locking up our workers, disabling our economies and thwarting students from going to schools. There has to be more humane ways to tackle a mostly administrative problem. If we target and fully criminalize and enforce laws against employers looking to make profits by hiring 'cheap labor' and exploiting our workers or getting away with bad working conditions, we may get somewhere. While no country is really humane towards migrant bodies, I do believe the issue is unnecessarily politicized and serves as a wanton distraction from more pressing matters. If Congress wasn't full of cowards and pandering to big business elites, we would have some sort of comprehensive immigration reform by now.

"Those illegals" ? Mike you are commenting in undocumented student space. We are not a homogeneous group of people that you can label a whole category as 'unassimilable.' By the way, no one here is against criminal aliens (and by that I mean violent offenders) to be captured and deported ASAP. Also, a new study released earlier this week did confirm that 'illegal immigrants' are less likely to assimilate but you know why? Because they are forced to live in the shadows of society and not assimilate. It simply comes with being 'illegal' and how that category of people are labeled and treated i.e. denying the children of undocumented immigrants the right to postsecondary education doesn't help in the assimilation process.

I simply believe that we must find more effective ways to deal with the problem of illegal immigration -- get tough policies do not work, re: war on drugs, terrorism and now the war on immigrants. Drug use is mostly a medical problem and similarly most undocumented migration is an administrative matter.

I am talking about companies not having the incentive to hire cheap labor anymore if we enforce fair labor rights and protections across the board and instituting capital controls. If we are getting tough on labor, we must get equally as tough on capital. It sounds fair enough to me. Otherwise what we are simply doing is capturing undocumented immigrants and opening up more jobs for the reserve army of the unemployed i.e. more undocumented immigrants which is in effect, going around in circles while spreading fear in our communities, hurting local economies, innocent children and serving in the expansion of the national security state.

John E., we know who you are, your history at BNF, the taking away of your account privileges, multiple ID's and seriously doubt your commitment to anything pro-migrant. So I am absolutely uninterested in your discourse and think it is an exercise in futility. Maybe you can find better things to do with your time besides picking on undocumented students.

"They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure—of which you're a part, and so am I."

And that is a bad thing?

I think that is so 'far out' to say we are trying to bring foreign nationals in to break down the white Christian male power structure. Oh really...Talk about conspiracy theory.

I do not wish to be accused of saying things I haven't which you don't understand. It is a pointless waste of my valuable time to defend myself against your accusations.

Please, over 28.2% of our prisons are filled with non-violent drug offenders. It shows me you are pretty clueless. The average sentence for a first time, non-violent drug offender is longer than the average sentence for rape, child molestation, bank robbery or manslaughter. And that is ludicrous policy and you know it.

There is a duality in both components of supply and demand and the economic theory works in reverse as well. In terms of immigration the duality of demand is both for jobs and for cheap workers. Instead of focusing on criminalizing people that seek jobs, I simply wish to focus on criminalizing employers who seek to resist our labor rights and protections, thereby driving down wages of all Americans and exploiting any workers available to them. Simply criminalizing workers is not going to do much to cut what you term as 'demand.'

There are innocent victims in the wake of any immigration raids. I don't believe in taking parents away from their children, terrorizing our communities, destroying local economies and businesses, and creating situations where children--some of our best students--are too afraid to turn up for school which is what is happening in Postville. If you do, I am not going to waste another moment in trying to convince you otherwise.

The bottomline in the logic of my post is the effectiveness of immigration raids in stopping illegal immigration. Does it work? No. Does it have bad ramifications? Yes. I simply try to offer other alternatives that would discourage the hiring of undocumented workers and therefore the act of coming here illegally. It is not any different from what has already been presented to a House Committee hearing on whether Americans are losing jobs to foreign workers and what we can do about it. Either you cannot read properly or you like to distort truths in order to pick arguments.

This is an undocumented youth space. I will not tolerate any misguided efforts to curtail our voice in the few spaces we have been given.

The drug analogy is really bad. How is the war on drugs doing with crackdown on users? It is a failed national policy that fills up our prisons with non-violent offenders while also ripping apart our families and communities.

I haven't 'defended' the act of working with false identity cards for a second and neither have I promoted it; instead, I suggested we direct our energies towards punishing the people who actually give out cards to begin with as well as employers violating immigration laws. Don't put words in my mouth.

P.S. Illegal entry is a misdemeanor and about 50% of illegal immigrants here did not even commit that misdemeanor. Illegal presence is also not a crime. Immigration raids that rip apart families, terrorize children and devastate local economies is not the answer to an administrative problem.

Thanks for your comment.

And where are these workers stealing identity from? We need to be cracking down on people who actually do the job of identity theft and make fake SS cards, rather than people who use them -- There will be users as long as the system exploits them and does nothing about the source of the problem. By next year, Agriprocesses will be employing a new pool of undocumented migrants again. So what does arresting and deporting workers really do? At best, it is a bandaid solution.

20 million is an aggravated figure as well. We aren't going to get anywhere as long as we don't have full protection and rights for all workers. That would take away the incentive to hire 'cheap labor' since there would be no such thing. But as long as big business fills the coffers of both parties, labor rights and protections will continue to be compromised.

You think I waste my time watching trash tv, especially commercials? It's called Tivo! :)

But wait a minute. Can't you stay in school and still be a druggie? LOL.

I know, I ain't cool, I am hot ;)

I don't know whether to laugh or cry but I totally missed you!

Fornification is not bad and neither is sodomy (ahem) ... What is being cool about (#5)? Future link in case I get deported?

*on the floor*

It's totally unfortunate and I don't mean to assign blame to the guy--yes, he is acting like any other young men. I just needed to point out that we have to be extra careful at all times and keep our behavior "in-check" and "in-line" with what is considered "normalcy" in our society. I suppose I am no one to talk while I paint the streets queer. It's just a concern -- I don't want more fellow DREAMers being caught and deported over stupid things like this.

Here is the link - www.youtube.com

Yes Elin, very fitting indeed. I think I have quoted that in one of my earlier posts about immigrant detention. Thanks for stopping by.

I sent them an email at their contact address to see if I can get in touch. Heck, we live in the same area, they must be really underground for me not to know anything.

Thank you Ms. Sachs for your post. If you can, do keep us posted with updates as we always like to keep tabs and keep up to date with news about fellow students.

We have so many students like Meynardo who are in this situation (Juan Gomez, Marie Gonzalez, Tope Awe--to name just a few) facing deportation to places they do not know. When good compassionate Americans come to know us and hear our stories, their perception of the "illegal immigrant" changes. We are educated, speak English perfectly and just want the chance to pursue the American dream. It is unjust, unfair and simply un-American to punish children for the alleged transgressions of their parents. Students like Meynardo are casualties in a war that we did not start and did not sign up for. The best hope for many of us is the DREAM Act. I hope that Meynardo along with all of us win in this long struggle to gain tolerance and acceptance in the country we consider our home.

Dear Anne,
Please know that as a voice for DREAMers, I cannot possibly employ that sort of discourse in my blog posts on this site. My objective is to create support for DREAM, not alienate potential supporters with far left-wing 'babel.'

Hello Ms. Marcoccio,
Thanks for posting. Stories like that of Meynardo Garcia are a real concern for us since we are in the same in-limbo situation.

I take pride in the fact that I am what is called "Gen 1.5" but as you point out, it doesn't make us any less American.

Check on NLG resources in Florida. Maybe they can get him a Guild Attorney. The contact emails are below:
Florida - Gainesville
Andrea Costello
andrea.costello at southernlegal.org

Florida - Southern Florida
Robert Ross, Jr.
bravelaw at bellsouth.net

Also, see this site with Immigrant rights coalitions in Florida - Maybe they can help as well?
http://dreamactivist.org/take-action-2/get-involved/

Last but not least, if it comes down to final deportation, then it would be best to contact the House Rep or Senators in Florida and hope they show enough compassion to sponsor a private bill.

For now the action plan should be to keep delaying deportation and hope with the election of a DEM President, the DREAM Act passes in early 2009.

Quite valid and important points that should be taken into account. I agree that images and representation do hurt us since there is little discourse across the aisles.

As for the not caring about 'country of origin' question, I can't speak for him. There are DREAMers who have been here from when they were a few months old to students that are Gen 1.5 like me. He really does not know much about his country of origin besides what he may have read and I believe that if he gives some hint that he 'cares' about where he is from, he will be told to 'go back' there. But for a lot of us, America is the only country we know or remember. Even Senator Durbin appealed for DREAM along these lines when he was talking about Marie Gonzalez and how Cuba isn't her country; America is her country. There's a reason I haven't blogged anything about my own country of origin--it sends mixed signals that we know a home apart from the USA and that isn't good for us either.

I think a Dem. President and Congress is vital for us to win CIR and DREAM. We have been so patient -- I was 17 when DREAM was first introduced and now 24 at the end of the year. I always thought that I wouldn't need CIR or any other immigration legislation to pass, that my parents UCSIS paperwork would come through like they had promised me time and again. So we live in-limbo, some of us with a sense of betrayal, some who cannot even go to college and others who cannot afford further studies, some facing deportation hearings later in the year, trying to get the inevitable delayed. I don't know what I would do the day this wait ends. We would have to learn to live a new kind of life--learning to drive a car, building credit history, getting jobs, filing taxes, learning about mortgages, moving out on our own...Life might not get any easier I fear sometimes, but at least we would be living I suppose without the constant fear of being ripped apart from our families and homes.

Thank you for your suggestions once again. Much enjoyed conversing with you.