By Albor Ruiz
The New York Daily News
July 6th 2011
Few people would dispute that children, like everybody else in America, are entitled to the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet, Wednesday, at the Peter Rodino Federal Building in Newark, dozens of children and families will gather to demonstrate and remind everyone about that fact.
The children, all of them born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, will give poignant first-hand testimony of the tragedy of being callously separated from their parents by our dysfunctional immigration laws.
They are American citizens, but today they will not speak about their pursuit of happiness. Instead, they will tell everyone about the fear, the sadness and the loneliness they suffer because of the deportation of their parents.
"My name is Jocelyn. The last time I saw my mother was on a Friday morning before heading to school. I have not seen her since that day, which was about three years ago."
Her mother was torn from her four children and her husband and deported to her native Mexico.
"I hope that she comes back to us or that we are able to see her again," said Jocelyn, a serious-looking 15-year old. "We need her and we miss her so much. I only wish to see her to tell her how much I love her."
Jocelyn's story, sad as it is, is far from unique.
The tragedy of citizen children whose parents have been taken from them by our broken immigration laws is one of enormous proportions.
Nearly one in 10 American families are of mixed immigration status, where at least one parent is a noncitizen, and at least one child a citizen, according to data compiled by the American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights.
An estimated 3.1 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented, the data shows.
Many others have at least one parent who is a permanent legal resident who can be subject to deportation for minor legal infractions upon filing for a change of immigration status.
As a result, thousands of American children are separated from a parent. Between 1998 and 2007, at least 108,434 parents of U.S.-citizen children were deported.
Absurdly enough, immigration judges are not permitted to balance family unity against deportation requirements. As we have seen, in many cases this has led to one or both parents of child citizens being deported, parents who must choose between leaving the child behind in his or her own country or taking the child to a country foreign to him or her.
That's why these children will rally in Newark to demand their government pays attention to the devastating impact of deportation and enact fair and humane immigration policies that focus on keeping families together.
Certainly it's not too much to ask.
They and advocates will also visit their Congressional representatives today in their district offices. The purpose is to lobby them to co-sponsor the Child Citizen Protection Act recently reintroduced by Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.).
The act would allow immigration judges the discretion to take family situations into account during deportation proceedings.
"I have trouble believing that any American would support their government breaking up families or orphaning children," Serrano said. "We must bring our government's policies in line with our values, which do not include breaking families apart."
Yes, we must, for the sake of these children and for our own sake.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/07/06/2011-07-06_reform_immig_laws_to_end_separation_anxiety.html#ixzz1RSa9UJP1
Showing posts with label Expulsions in NJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsions in NJ. Show all posts
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Legislation targets employers who shortchange illegal immigrants
By ABBOTT KOLOFF
The Daily Record
March 27, 2011
One woman said she had been threatened with deportation if she continued to press for pay at her restaurant job. One man said he made repeated calls for back pay to a former employer who kept putting him off. Another said a former boss set aside a week's salary as a "deposit" and then kept it.
A group of day laborers, all illegal immigrants, gathered Thursday night at the offices of Wind of the Spirit, an immigrant advocacy group, to go over the status of grievances against former bosses and to learn about a proposed state law that would beef up punishments for employers who withhold wages from workers.
Julio Lopez, a 43-year-old Morristown resident, said he left a job at a painting company in mid-December because he hadn't been paid in weeks and needed money to buy clothes and Christmas gifts for his three children, two of them born in the U.S. He said he has a tax identification number and pays taxes on his wages.
"He kept telling me not to worry," Lopez said of his former boss. "I said "I'm worried; I have a wife and kids.' "
Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, filed a bill almost two weeks ago called the Wage Protection Act that would increase penalties for employers found guilty of violating the state's wage laws. Not only would such employers be required to repay illegally withheld wages, they also would be required to pay damages and be fined $1,000 plus 20 percent of withheld wages on the first offense. Convicted employers also would be subject to losing various state licenses.
Justin Braz, Quijano's chief of staff, said the bill was inspired by a Seton Hall Law School report released in January focusing on the alleged exploitation of day laborers. But he added that the bill was broader than that because the problem of employers violating the state's wage laws goes beyond those who hire undocumented workers.
"The intent is to protect all workers who deserve to get paid," he said.
Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, known as one of the most conservative members of the Legislature, at first responded negatively to the idea of aiding day laborers, saying they do not pay taxes. He then said the bill might be a "good idea."
"The more risk you put on hiring day laborers, the less likely you'll hire them," Carroll said. "Maybe then they'll go home. . . . I don't think many people feel sympathy for employers stealing from illegals. If this is an attempt to make sure businesses play by the rules, that's certainly not unfair."
The proposed bill also would allow some workers to file anonymous civil suits because of a fear of retaliation by employers, although they would be required to file a second set of papers using their names. Braz said the proposal would allow a complainant's identity to be kept from the defendant, at least at first — a concept that drew a critical response from a prominent labor attorney last week.
"Due process requires you know who it is to defend yourself," said Wayne Positan, a Roseland attorney. "It's repugnant to due process."
Positan said state and federal laws already deal with the issue of retaliation, and that the bill might create an unnecessary burden on local courts by sending additional complaints there instead of to state and federal agencies designed to deal with them.
The recent Seton Hall report addressed the vulnerability of day laborers, saying they are easy targets for unscrupulous employers because they often are afraid to go to authorities, fearing deportation, or did not know about their legal options. The report was based on a survey of 113 day laborers, mostly Latinos, at seven sites across New Jersey, including Morristown. It included observations of more than another 100 day laborers who did not want to participate in the survey.
Of those surveyed, 54 percent said they had been paid less than they had been promised over the past year, 48 percent had not been paid at all at some point, 94 percent had not been paid for overtime, and 26 percent had been assaulted on the job. Typical weekly incomes during the winter were less than $200, and between $300 and $400 during the spring and summer, the report said.
Yet just three surveyed workers filed complaints with the state Department of Labor, according to the report.
Department of Labor spokeswoman Kerri Gatling said the state does not keep track of types of complaints, so there is no way to know how many of the 9,598 complaints made to the state between June 30, 2009, and July 1, 2010, were from day laborers. The state did recover $8.3 million of wages or overtime for 8,845 workers over that time period, she said. The state does not ask about immigration status, Gatling said.
Diana Mejia, a co-founder of Wind of the Spirit, said her group helped 47 Morris County workers get close to $30,000 in lost wages last year by negotiating with employers, all without help from the state. She said her group routinely holds meetings to help day laborers deal with employers who won't pay them. It also helps clients file complaints with the state.
Just two of the six workers attending Thursday night's meeting had made such a complaint.
Delsi Cardona, a 23-year-old single mother of a 4-year-old boy, said an employer threatened her with deportation after she asked to be paid money that she was owed. She has not yet filed a complaint.
"I'm very afraid," she said.
Alfonso Ortiz, 47, of Morristown hasn't filed a complaint because he came to Wind of the Spirit three years after he said a flooring company stiffed him for $1,100. The law requires filing within two years, Mejia said.
"It's too long," she said of Ortiz's case. "We still say we'll try to help him."
Silvano Jimenez Camacho, 28, of Morristown and Alejandro Flores, 22, of Parsippany both filed complaints with the state. Camacho said he is owed $1,200 from a flooring company where he worked last year. Flores said a pizzeria owner held a week's salary as a "deposit" and kept it, along with his last week's pay, a total of $1,350.
Both of those complaints are waiting to be adjudicated and are not yet available as public records.
Flores has been in the U.S. since he was 16 and has a 4-year-old daughter. He was not initially aware that keeping a week's salary as a "deposit" was unusual.
He also did not seem to know about overtime. He said he has since found another job that pays better, about $800 a week for at least 10 hours a day, six days a week. He added that he sometimes works more than 12 hours a day but gets the same pay.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20110327/NJNEWS/103280301/Legislation-targets-employers-who-shortchange-illegal-immigrants
The Daily Record
March 27, 2011
One woman said she had been threatened with deportation if she continued to press for pay at her restaurant job. One man said he made repeated calls for back pay to a former employer who kept putting him off. Another said a former boss set aside a week's salary as a "deposit" and then kept it.
A group of day laborers, all illegal immigrants, gathered Thursday night at the offices of Wind of the Spirit, an immigrant advocacy group, to go over the status of grievances against former bosses and to learn about a proposed state law that would beef up punishments for employers who withhold wages from workers.
Julio Lopez, a 43-year-old Morristown resident, said he left a job at a painting company in mid-December because he hadn't been paid in weeks and needed money to buy clothes and Christmas gifts for his three children, two of them born in the U.S. He said he has a tax identification number and pays taxes on his wages.
"He kept telling me not to worry," Lopez said of his former boss. "I said "I'm worried; I have a wife and kids.' "
Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, filed a bill almost two weeks ago called the Wage Protection Act that would increase penalties for employers found guilty of violating the state's wage laws. Not only would such employers be required to repay illegally withheld wages, they also would be required to pay damages and be fined $1,000 plus 20 percent of withheld wages on the first offense. Convicted employers also would be subject to losing various state licenses.
Justin Braz, Quijano's chief of staff, said the bill was inspired by a Seton Hall Law School report released in January focusing on the alleged exploitation of day laborers. But he added that the bill was broader than that because the problem of employers violating the state's wage laws goes beyond those who hire undocumented workers.
"The intent is to protect all workers who deserve to get paid," he said.
Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, known as one of the most conservative members of the Legislature, at first responded negatively to the idea of aiding day laborers, saying they do not pay taxes. He then said the bill might be a "good idea."
"The more risk you put on hiring day laborers, the less likely you'll hire them," Carroll said. "Maybe then they'll go home. . . . I don't think many people feel sympathy for employers stealing from illegals. If this is an attempt to make sure businesses play by the rules, that's certainly not unfair."
The proposed bill also would allow some workers to file anonymous civil suits because of a fear of retaliation by employers, although they would be required to file a second set of papers using their names. Braz said the proposal would allow a complainant's identity to be kept from the defendant, at least at first — a concept that drew a critical response from a prominent labor attorney last week.
"Due process requires you know who it is to defend yourself," said Wayne Positan, a Roseland attorney. "It's repugnant to due process."
Positan said state and federal laws already deal with the issue of retaliation, and that the bill might create an unnecessary burden on local courts by sending additional complaints there instead of to state and federal agencies designed to deal with them.
The recent Seton Hall report addressed the vulnerability of day laborers, saying they are easy targets for unscrupulous employers because they often are afraid to go to authorities, fearing deportation, or did not know about their legal options. The report was based on a survey of 113 day laborers, mostly Latinos, at seven sites across New Jersey, including Morristown. It included observations of more than another 100 day laborers who did not want to participate in the survey.
Of those surveyed, 54 percent said they had been paid less than they had been promised over the past year, 48 percent had not been paid at all at some point, 94 percent had not been paid for overtime, and 26 percent had been assaulted on the job. Typical weekly incomes during the winter were less than $200, and between $300 and $400 during the spring and summer, the report said.
Yet just three surveyed workers filed complaints with the state Department of Labor, according to the report.
Department of Labor spokeswoman Kerri Gatling said the state does not keep track of types of complaints, so there is no way to know how many of the 9,598 complaints made to the state between June 30, 2009, and July 1, 2010, were from day laborers. The state did recover $8.3 million of wages or overtime for 8,845 workers over that time period, she said. The state does not ask about immigration status, Gatling said.
Diana Mejia, a co-founder of Wind of the Spirit, said her group helped 47 Morris County workers get close to $30,000 in lost wages last year by negotiating with employers, all without help from the state. She said her group routinely holds meetings to help day laborers deal with employers who won't pay them. It also helps clients file complaints with the state.
Just two of the six workers attending Thursday night's meeting had made such a complaint.
Delsi Cardona, a 23-year-old single mother of a 4-year-old boy, said an employer threatened her with deportation after she asked to be paid money that she was owed. She has not yet filed a complaint.
"I'm very afraid," she said.
Alfonso Ortiz, 47, of Morristown hasn't filed a complaint because he came to Wind of the Spirit three years after he said a flooring company stiffed him for $1,100. The law requires filing within two years, Mejia said.
"It's too long," she said of Ortiz's case. "We still say we'll try to help him."
Silvano Jimenez Camacho, 28, of Morristown and Alejandro Flores, 22, of Parsippany both filed complaints with the state. Camacho said he is owed $1,200 from a flooring company where he worked last year. Flores said a pizzeria owner held a week's salary as a "deposit" and kept it, along with his last week's pay, a total of $1,350.
Both of those complaints are waiting to be adjudicated and are not yet available as public records.
Flores has been in the U.S. since he was 16 and has a 4-year-old daughter. He was not initially aware that keeping a week's salary as a "deposit" was unusual.
He also did not seem to know about overtime. He said he has since found another job that pays better, about $800 a week for at least 10 hours a day, six days a week. He added that he sometimes works more than 12 hours a day but gets the same pay.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20110327/NJNEWS/103280301/Legislation-targets-employers-who-shortchange-illegal-immigrants
Monday, July 26, 2010
N.J. businesses are fined nearly $640K for employing undocumented workers
The Associated Press
July 22, 2010
Immigration officials fined New Jersey businesses $640,000 in the last fiscal year for use of undocumented workers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have fined 13 employers in New Jersey nearly $640,000 because of undocumented workers.
That's about 15 times more than the fines levied in all of fiscal year 2009, when four employers in the state were fined $44,728.
ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Newark says the agency is focused on building cases against "egregious employers" who fail to ensure their employees are eligible to work in the U.S.
Ort says the agency conducts "silent raids" by checking forms which document a person's eligibility to work in the United States.
ICE declined to name the businesses.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/immigration_officials_warn_25.html
July 22, 2010
Immigration officials fined New Jersey businesses $640,000 in the last fiscal year for use of undocumented workers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have fined 13 employers in New Jersey nearly $640,000 because of undocumented workers.
That's about 15 times more than the fines levied in all of fiscal year 2009, when four employers in the state were fined $44,728.
ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Newark says the agency is focused on building cases against "egregious employers" who fail to ensure their employees are eligible to work in the U.S.
Ort says the agency conducts "silent raids" by checking forms which document a person's eligibility to work in the United States.
ICE declined to name the businesses.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/immigration_officials_warn_25.html
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Paterson mother of soldier killed in Iraq fears deportation
By Tomas Dinges
The Star-Ledger
February 01, 2010
Eugenia Galdos mourns her son, Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, at the family home in Paterson. Bueno-Galdos was killed along with four other soldiers in May 2009 by a mentally disturbed U.S. soldier at a clinic in Baghdad. On Tuesday morning, Eugenia Galdos visited her son’s grave at the Totowa Cemetery to ask for help.
When he was alive, Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos had helped his father attain permanent residency and was doing the same for his mother.
But when Bueno-Galdos, 25, was killed along with four other soldiers in May 2009 by a mentally disturbed U.S. soldier at a clinic in Baghdad, his mother’s path to citizenship apparently halted.
Months have passed without an official explanation of the delay in processing her immigration papers. The uncertainty has led Galdos, of Paterson, to fear deportation despite recent encouragement from staffers in the office of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), she said.
“I don’t want to go because I have my son buried here,” Galdos said. “My son gave his life for this country.”
Bueno-Galdos and his family arrived from Mollendo, Peru, when he was 8. He received his citizenship while in the U.S. Army, which he joined in 2002. Bueno-Galdos specialized in the detection and analysis of lethal chemicals.
By December 2008, Bueno-Galdos was in the final stages of securing permanent status for his mother and the application for permanent residency had been approved, said Amada Espinoza, a U.S. Army family counselor who is helping navigate Galdos through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement paperwork.
But shortly after her son’s death, Galdos said she was informed the process had been halted and was being re-evaluated. Despite the approval, Galdos was told by immigration authorities a deportation order filed for her years before was being investigated again, Espinoza said.
Galdos sought out the Newark veterans advocacy group G.I. Go Fund, which was able to set up a meeting with staffers in Menendez’s office.
After Bueno-Galdos’ death, the family decided to bury him in the United States, a country he loved, said his mother, and where he developed a vast network of friendships.
Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, could not speak specifically to Galdos’ case, but noted that situations involving citizenship and the military can be reviewed separately.
“There are certain discretions available to a district director, but they have to do this by a case-by-case basis,” she said.
Immigration law does not waive all factors or circumstances that might make an applicant like Galdos ineligible for a green card, like illegal entry or a false claim to citizenship, said Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer who assists military members and their families.
“So some parents of deceased soldiers are not eligible for benefits under this law. It creates a narrow remedy for some parents only,” she said.
There have been few deportations of parents of deceased service members, she said. But, immigration authorities cannot legally grant permanent residency to these applicants and instead are given a year-toyear residency permit.
“They get to live in the U.S. at the whim of the U.S. government and at any time it can be revoked,” she said.
Recent legislation Menendez co-sponsored seeks to automatically grant permanent residency for parents and spouses of family members who die in war.
After visiting her son’s grave at the cemetery Tuesday, Galdos had yet another of a series of inconclusive interactions with immigration authorities.
“If this case only had to do with me, I understand,” said Galdos. “But I have something here that I can’t leave behind, and that is my son.”
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/paterson_mother_of_soldier_kil.html
The Star-Ledger
February 01, 2010
Eugenia Galdos mourns her son, Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, at the family home in Paterson. Bueno-Galdos was killed along with four other soldiers in May 2009 by a mentally disturbed U.S. soldier at a clinic in Baghdad. On Tuesday morning, Eugenia Galdos visited her son’s grave at the Totowa Cemetery to ask for help.
When he was alive, Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos had helped his father attain permanent residency and was doing the same for his mother.
But when Bueno-Galdos, 25, was killed along with four other soldiers in May 2009 by a mentally disturbed U.S. soldier at a clinic in Baghdad, his mother’s path to citizenship apparently halted.
Months have passed without an official explanation of the delay in processing her immigration papers. The uncertainty has led Galdos, of Paterson, to fear deportation despite recent encouragement from staffers in the office of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), she said.
“I don’t want to go because I have my son buried here,” Galdos said. “My son gave his life for this country.”
Bueno-Galdos and his family arrived from Mollendo, Peru, when he was 8. He received his citizenship while in the U.S. Army, which he joined in 2002. Bueno-Galdos specialized in the detection and analysis of lethal chemicals.
By December 2008, Bueno-Galdos was in the final stages of securing permanent status for his mother and the application for permanent residency had been approved, said Amada Espinoza, a U.S. Army family counselor who is helping navigate Galdos through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement paperwork.
But shortly after her son’s death, Galdos said she was informed the process had been halted and was being re-evaluated. Despite the approval, Galdos was told by immigration authorities a deportation order filed for her years before was being investigated again, Espinoza said.
Galdos sought out the Newark veterans advocacy group G.I. Go Fund, which was able to set up a meeting with staffers in Menendez’s office.
After Bueno-Galdos’ death, the family decided to bury him in the United States, a country he loved, said his mother, and where he developed a vast network of friendships.
Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, could not speak specifically to Galdos’ case, but noted that situations involving citizenship and the military can be reviewed separately.
“There are certain discretions available to a district director, but they have to do this by a case-by-case basis,” she said.
Immigration law does not waive all factors or circumstances that might make an applicant like Galdos ineligible for a green card, like illegal entry or a false claim to citizenship, said Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer who assists military members and their families.
“So some parents of deceased soldiers are not eligible for benefits under this law. It creates a narrow remedy for some parents only,” she said.
There have been few deportations of parents of deceased service members, she said. But, immigration authorities cannot legally grant permanent residency to these applicants and instead are given a year-toyear residency permit.
“They get to live in the U.S. at the whim of the U.S. government and at any time it can be revoked,” she said.
Recent legislation Menendez co-sponsored seeks to automatically grant permanent residency for parents and spouses of family members who die in war.
After visiting her son’s grave at the cemetery Tuesday, Galdos had yet another of a series of inconclusive interactions with immigration authorities.
“If this case only had to do with me, I understand,” said Galdos. “But I have something here that I can’t leave behind, and that is my son.”
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/paterson_mother_of_soldier_kil.html
Saturday, January 9, 2010
An Undocumented Princetonian
By JOSEPH BERGER
The New York Times
January 3, 2010
IN lyrical passages of “This Side of Paradise,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s young alter ego, Amory Blaine, is awed by the “great dreaming spires” of Princeton and its “lazy beauty, its half-grasped significance, the wild moonlight revel of the rushes.” Three generations later, Harold Fernandez was no less awed by the castle-like dormitories, the teeming libraries, the hoary traditions.
But Harold Fernandez was different from most freshmen. Amory Blaine had been to prep school, and his mother, though not of the privileged class, had raised him to appreciate the treasures of Western culture. Harold had been raised in the streets of Medellín, Colombia, listening to tango and salsa lyrics that spoke of the harsh local realities of violence, drugs and prison. His American schooling was in a gritty factory town, West New York, N.J.
He also harbored a secret. He had entered Princeton using a fake green card and Social Security number that he had acquired in the immigrant black market, because he had been smuggled into Florida on a leaky boat crowded with illegal immigrants.
Relentless poverty had driven his parents to leave him and his younger brother Byron in Medellín as they scraped together a living in the United States. The parents missed their sons terribly and were desperate to have them escape what was then the world’s cocaine capital. The boys’ childhood neighborhood was lively with children kicking soccer balls, but Harold had twice witnessed young men being shot to death in drug wars; violence would ultimately claim six of his own relatives.
At age 13, he had not seen his father for four years or his mother for two. And so in October of 1978, he and Byron said goodbye at the Medellín airport to the two grandmothers who had cared for them. Even today, he can recall the sadness written on their faces; if the boys reached their destination, they might never see them again.
The boys made their way to the tiny island of North Bimini, where they and a dozen other migrants waited 12 days for the treacherous seas of the Bermuda Triangle to calm for their clandestine voyage.
Just before midnight one moonless night, the group clambered aboard a 25-foot wooden cabin cruiser that did not seem seaworthy enough to take them the 50 miles to the coast of Florida. As they huddled around the cabin table, the boat lurched and bounced over the waves. Harold remembers the terror in the grown-ups’ eyes. Soon almost everyone was seasick, dashing to the toilet to vomit. “Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo, santificado sea tu nombre,” they murmured, the Lord’s Prayer.
By daybreak the weary, battered travelers glimpsed the jagged skyline of Miami. When they disembarked, they staggered a few hundred yards to a public telephone, where they took turns calling relatives. The joyful lilt of his mother’s voice when she learned her sons were safe is still clear in Harold Fernandez’s mind. Yet he sometimes considers what his reckless crossing cost: years as an outlaw, with the fear that each day would be his last in America.
With steady work and fierce ambition, the boy weathered West New York’s rough-and-tumble culture to become valedictorian of Memorial High School and gain admission to Princeton. Whatever his back story, he was now required to thrive on this side of paradise.
HAROLD FERNANDEZ arrived on campus in 1985, two weeks before most of the class, to take part in a program for poor and minority students or those from high schools without the array of Advanced Placement courses that Princeton freshmen usually had. Princeton wanted to introduce these students to its academic demands by giving them a taste of calculus, chemistry and writing. It was writing, Harold remembers, that was his biggest challenge, and his mangling of everyday English would haunt him throughout his college years.
For his first year, Harold was assigned a small room with a window overlooking a stately Gothic courtyard in the Hamilton Hall dorm in Mathey, one of Princeton’s residential colleges. He shared it with a Mexican immigrant from East Los Angeles who had a deceptively aristocratic bearing: he actually was paying his way by washing dishes in the cafeteria. The other Mathey students were daunting; they included the sons of lawyers, businessmen, even a Rockefeller. Once, in the cafeteria, Harold was slathering peanut butter and jelly on bread as a strikingly tall, attractive girl waited for him to finish. He realized it was Brooke Shields — the Brooke Shields. She was a junior. He pretended not to be starstruck, but he was. He felt, in Fitzgerald’s words, “stiff and awkward among these white flannelled, bareheaded youths” and he envied “the savoir-faire with which they strolled.”
At night, as he tried to fall asleep, he wondered about his West New York education. Could it match that of students who had gone to selective schools? He assumed his SAT scores were among the lowest in his class. He moved around campus feeling as if he were onstage and the other students were reviewing his performance and finding it wanting. Although he dressed neatly, he was painfully aware that his clothes were cut-rate. One classmate, the son of a physician, “went out shopping with his parents and came back with a pair of $200 shoes,” Harold recalls. “I had never spent more than $20 on a pair.”
The young immigrant ate all his meals in the cafeteria, whose food he considered “gourmet quality,” though most of his classmates knew better. He worked shifts washing dishes and he tutored the daughter of his Latin American literature professor in calculus.
Luckily, he says, his grandmothers had hammered self-respect into him. He was proud of the solitary women who had raised him, and proud of how hard his father and mother had worked to send money to Colombia to put food on the family table. Still, each time he uttered his awkward sentences, he was sure other students wondered what he was doing at Princeton.
In the classroom he was very quiet, he says. But as the year progressed, he showed a firm grasp of the course material on written tests. He would read a required chapter so many times he would memorize much of it. He was always ahead of the reading list by two weeks. He kept two notebooks for every course, one recording what the professor had said in class and the other containing more organized summaries supplemented with explanations and diagrams. To study, he found private niches where there were no distractions. He was particularly attached to the classrooms in Palmer Hall, where nearly half a century before Einstein had given some of his lectures.
“Just the idea of sitting in the same rooms where mankind’s greatest mind had worked was inspiring,” he says now. “I would read about a problem, solve it, and then step up to the blackboard and pretend that I was teaching it to someone else. I would do this routine in a loud voice. I found that if I could teach a concept to someone else, then I understood it. Besides, I figured that no one else would want to share a room with someone who was studying in such a nutty way.”
He received A’s his first semester, and at the start of spring semester, he received a personal letter from Nancy Kanach, then Mathey’s director of studies, which said that he was one of the college’s top freshmen. With tears in his eyes, he read the letter over many times. He was proving wrong those who had dismissed him as an undeserving beneficiary of affirmative action. He suspects that he was admitted as a result of such a policy. But Princeton’s admissions committee, he felt, had paid attention to the fact that his accomplishments were achieved after arriving in this country as a Spanish-speaking 13-year-old.
IF he was beginning to feel he might be a legitimate part of this cherished American institution, that confidence would end one spring evening. Students would soon be going home for the break, and he was eagerly looking forward to again tasting his mother’s arepas — stuffed tortillas — and listening to his parents’ earthy Spanish wit. He ate dinner with the young woman he was dating, as he did most weeknights, and they returned to the dorm. At the mailboxes he spied an envelope.
It was a form letter from the adviser to foreign-born students, Janina M. Issawi. Those who were not citizens or permanent residents were asked to set up appointments and bring their documents to be photocopied. According to a Princeton spokeswoman, Emily Aronson, the university had to verify that these students were eligible for federal loans or work-study jobs. Harold had received a Pell grant and federal loans, both restricted to citizens or permanent residents. He was neither.
A copy of his green card had been submitted with his application; now Princeton was asking for the original. But the original was a crude forgery.
The dream that had begun at a Florida dock was about to shatter. His face must have telegraphed his shock, because his girlfriend asked him immediately what was wrong. “I can’t tell you now,” he remembers responding. “I need to go back to my room.”
She insisted on accompanying him, and in his room she reached into his coat pocket and grabbed the letter. He let her read it. He had never spoken about his immigration status to anyone on campus, but now he did. He revealed that he could be deported to Colombia overnight if immigration officials discovered the truth. At the least, Princeton would throw him out.
“Although we had been together for just a few months, we were falling in love,” he says. “So when the full weight of my predicament sank in, tears were welling in her eyes, I could see. Somehow her emotions showed me how much she cared and bolstered me for the troubled days ahead.”
He did not tell his parents. He knew it would tear them up to learn that he might be expelled, shorn of the opportunities they had worked so hard to give him. His father’s locker at the embroidery factory where he worked was plastered with local newspaper articles about his son’s accomplishments in the classroom and on the track and soccer teams. His father would buttonhole coworkers and his boss and show off the clippings. The boss might earn more money, but he did not have a son at Princeton.
Harold could not summon the nerve to show the adviser fake documents. A few years earlier, he had failed to obtain a genuine Social Security card (his father had acquired one years earlier; he says he was never asked for proof of immigration status). All Harold would have had to do was flash his fake green card at a government clerk in Long Branch, N.J. If a clerk could intimidate him, how much more would a Princeton official?
He decided he had to confess, but first he confided in someone he had come to trust — his professor in Latin American literature, Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones.
The professor closed the door to his office, and they sat down at a small table. Harold did not utter a word. The tensions that had built up spilled out. He dropped his head on the table and wept.
Professor Díaz put his hand on his shoulder consolingly. After a few minutes, Harold collected himself and unfolded his saga. Professor Díaz seemed to listen to the tale as if it were a picaresque novel. Professor Díaz, who still teaches at Princeton, recalls that when Harold was done, he advised him not to tell anyone and to keep at his schoolwork. He says he assured Harold that he would speak to Mrs. Issawi and to the university’s president, William G. Bowen.
A few days later, Harold was asked to meet with Ms. Kanach. He found her just as friendly in person as in her letter congratulating him on his record. Ms. Kanach, who is now senior associate dean of the college, remembers the encounter only vaguely. Harold says he remembers it clearly. He says she told him Princeton was proud to have him as a student but identified two formidable problems he had created for the university. First, he had broken Princeton’s honor code, which essentially affirms that students will not cheat or lie. Moreover, he had improperly received government money intended for American citizens or permanent residents.
“Just as I was feeling crushed by the gravity of these issues,” he remembers, “she went on to say: ‘But, Harold, both problems have solutions.’ ”
To address the first, he would have to write an essay explaining his understanding of the honor code, how he had broken it and why he deserved a pardon. To resolve the second, Princeton would change his status to that of a foreign student and furnish grants and loans with its own funds, laying out more than $16,000 a year. It was like having a full Princeton scholarship.
Ms. Aronson confirms that the university engaged in this practice for some foreign-born students, adding that since 2001, Princeton has replaced all need-based loans with grants, “regardless of national origin.” Also, the admissions office does not consider immigration status in making its decisions, she says, and “there are no laws that would require us to do so.”
Harold says, “I think the fact that I was doing so well in my courses and was playing on a school soccer team helped my case. Nevertheless, I was moved by the school’s generosity toward someone whom they could have shrugged off as an unscrupulous intruder.”
He left Ms. Kanach’s office feeling enormous relief, he says, but he was not in the clear. He was no longer an impostor at Princeton, but his family was illegally in the United States. Authorities could still send them back to Colombia. With that as well, Princeton would help.
Harold traveled home for a weekend to tell his parents what had happened, but in reverse order. Princeton had offered a meeting with a university lawyer who specialized in immigration so that his parents might legalize their status. And then he told them about his confession.
His mother sat next to him gently crying. Even today, she agonizes over the decision to immigrate illegally, and what it put her children through. She expressed appreciation to Princeton and said: “Harold, mi amor, you are doing great. Keep working hard and they will keep on helping you.”
EPILOGUE
The family attained legal residency, and among the arguments on their behalf was a letter from a Princeton alumnus then in the Senate, Bill Bradley. Harold Fernandez went on to graduate from Princeton magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1989, and to train at Harvard Medical School and New York University Medical Center. Now 44, he is a cardiac surgeon affiliated with St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, N.Y., where he performs bypass operations and valve replacements that allow his patients to live longer, more vigorous lives.
Joseph Berger, a metro reporter for The Times, is working with Harold Fernandez on a memoir. This article is adapted from the book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03alien-t.html
The New York Times
January 3, 2010
IN lyrical passages of “This Side of Paradise,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s young alter ego, Amory Blaine, is awed by the “great dreaming spires” of Princeton and its “lazy beauty, its half-grasped significance, the wild moonlight revel of the rushes.” Three generations later, Harold Fernandez was no less awed by the castle-like dormitories, the teeming libraries, the hoary traditions.
But Harold Fernandez was different from most freshmen. Amory Blaine had been to prep school, and his mother, though not of the privileged class, had raised him to appreciate the treasures of Western culture. Harold had been raised in the streets of Medellín, Colombia, listening to tango and salsa lyrics that spoke of the harsh local realities of violence, drugs and prison. His American schooling was in a gritty factory town, West New York, N.J.
He also harbored a secret. He had entered Princeton using a fake green card and Social Security number that he had acquired in the immigrant black market, because he had been smuggled into Florida on a leaky boat crowded with illegal immigrants.
Relentless poverty had driven his parents to leave him and his younger brother Byron in Medellín as they scraped together a living in the United States. The parents missed their sons terribly and were desperate to have them escape what was then the world’s cocaine capital. The boys’ childhood neighborhood was lively with children kicking soccer balls, but Harold had twice witnessed young men being shot to death in drug wars; violence would ultimately claim six of his own relatives.
At age 13, he had not seen his father for four years or his mother for two. And so in October of 1978, he and Byron said goodbye at the Medellín airport to the two grandmothers who had cared for them. Even today, he can recall the sadness written on their faces; if the boys reached their destination, they might never see them again.
The boys made their way to the tiny island of North Bimini, where they and a dozen other migrants waited 12 days for the treacherous seas of the Bermuda Triangle to calm for their clandestine voyage.
Just before midnight one moonless night, the group clambered aboard a 25-foot wooden cabin cruiser that did not seem seaworthy enough to take them the 50 miles to the coast of Florida. As they huddled around the cabin table, the boat lurched and bounced over the waves. Harold remembers the terror in the grown-ups’ eyes. Soon almost everyone was seasick, dashing to the toilet to vomit. “Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo, santificado sea tu nombre,” they murmured, the Lord’s Prayer.
By daybreak the weary, battered travelers glimpsed the jagged skyline of Miami. When they disembarked, they staggered a few hundred yards to a public telephone, where they took turns calling relatives. The joyful lilt of his mother’s voice when she learned her sons were safe is still clear in Harold Fernandez’s mind. Yet he sometimes considers what his reckless crossing cost: years as an outlaw, with the fear that each day would be his last in America.
With steady work and fierce ambition, the boy weathered West New York’s rough-and-tumble culture to become valedictorian of Memorial High School and gain admission to Princeton. Whatever his back story, he was now required to thrive on this side of paradise.
HAROLD FERNANDEZ arrived on campus in 1985, two weeks before most of the class, to take part in a program for poor and minority students or those from high schools without the array of Advanced Placement courses that Princeton freshmen usually had. Princeton wanted to introduce these students to its academic demands by giving them a taste of calculus, chemistry and writing. It was writing, Harold remembers, that was his biggest challenge, and his mangling of everyday English would haunt him throughout his college years.
For his first year, Harold was assigned a small room with a window overlooking a stately Gothic courtyard in the Hamilton Hall dorm in Mathey, one of Princeton’s residential colleges. He shared it with a Mexican immigrant from East Los Angeles who had a deceptively aristocratic bearing: he actually was paying his way by washing dishes in the cafeteria. The other Mathey students were daunting; they included the sons of lawyers, businessmen, even a Rockefeller. Once, in the cafeteria, Harold was slathering peanut butter and jelly on bread as a strikingly tall, attractive girl waited for him to finish. He realized it was Brooke Shields — the Brooke Shields. She was a junior. He pretended not to be starstruck, but he was. He felt, in Fitzgerald’s words, “stiff and awkward among these white flannelled, bareheaded youths” and he envied “the savoir-faire with which they strolled.”
At night, as he tried to fall asleep, he wondered about his West New York education. Could it match that of students who had gone to selective schools? He assumed his SAT scores were among the lowest in his class. He moved around campus feeling as if he were onstage and the other students were reviewing his performance and finding it wanting. Although he dressed neatly, he was painfully aware that his clothes were cut-rate. One classmate, the son of a physician, “went out shopping with his parents and came back with a pair of $200 shoes,” Harold recalls. “I had never spent more than $20 on a pair.”
The young immigrant ate all his meals in the cafeteria, whose food he considered “gourmet quality,” though most of his classmates knew better. He worked shifts washing dishes and he tutored the daughter of his Latin American literature professor in calculus.
Luckily, he says, his grandmothers had hammered self-respect into him. He was proud of the solitary women who had raised him, and proud of how hard his father and mother had worked to send money to Colombia to put food on the family table. Still, each time he uttered his awkward sentences, he was sure other students wondered what he was doing at Princeton.
In the classroom he was very quiet, he says. But as the year progressed, he showed a firm grasp of the course material on written tests. He would read a required chapter so many times he would memorize much of it. He was always ahead of the reading list by two weeks. He kept two notebooks for every course, one recording what the professor had said in class and the other containing more organized summaries supplemented with explanations and diagrams. To study, he found private niches where there were no distractions. He was particularly attached to the classrooms in Palmer Hall, where nearly half a century before Einstein had given some of his lectures.
“Just the idea of sitting in the same rooms where mankind’s greatest mind had worked was inspiring,” he says now. “I would read about a problem, solve it, and then step up to the blackboard and pretend that I was teaching it to someone else. I would do this routine in a loud voice. I found that if I could teach a concept to someone else, then I understood it. Besides, I figured that no one else would want to share a room with someone who was studying in such a nutty way.”
He received A’s his first semester, and at the start of spring semester, he received a personal letter from Nancy Kanach, then Mathey’s director of studies, which said that he was one of the college’s top freshmen. With tears in his eyes, he read the letter over many times. He was proving wrong those who had dismissed him as an undeserving beneficiary of affirmative action. He suspects that he was admitted as a result of such a policy. But Princeton’s admissions committee, he felt, had paid attention to the fact that his accomplishments were achieved after arriving in this country as a Spanish-speaking 13-year-old.
IF he was beginning to feel he might be a legitimate part of this cherished American institution, that confidence would end one spring evening. Students would soon be going home for the break, and he was eagerly looking forward to again tasting his mother’s arepas — stuffed tortillas — and listening to his parents’ earthy Spanish wit. He ate dinner with the young woman he was dating, as he did most weeknights, and they returned to the dorm. At the mailboxes he spied an envelope.
It was a form letter from the adviser to foreign-born students, Janina M. Issawi. Those who were not citizens or permanent residents were asked to set up appointments and bring their documents to be photocopied. According to a Princeton spokeswoman, Emily Aronson, the university had to verify that these students were eligible for federal loans or work-study jobs. Harold had received a Pell grant and federal loans, both restricted to citizens or permanent residents. He was neither.
A copy of his green card had been submitted with his application; now Princeton was asking for the original. But the original was a crude forgery.
The dream that had begun at a Florida dock was about to shatter. His face must have telegraphed his shock, because his girlfriend asked him immediately what was wrong. “I can’t tell you now,” he remembers responding. “I need to go back to my room.”
She insisted on accompanying him, and in his room she reached into his coat pocket and grabbed the letter. He let her read it. He had never spoken about his immigration status to anyone on campus, but now he did. He revealed that he could be deported to Colombia overnight if immigration officials discovered the truth. At the least, Princeton would throw him out.
“Although we had been together for just a few months, we were falling in love,” he says. “So when the full weight of my predicament sank in, tears were welling in her eyes, I could see. Somehow her emotions showed me how much she cared and bolstered me for the troubled days ahead.”
He did not tell his parents. He knew it would tear them up to learn that he might be expelled, shorn of the opportunities they had worked so hard to give him. His father’s locker at the embroidery factory where he worked was plastered with local newspaper articles about his son’s accomplishments in the classroom and on the track and soccer teams. His father would buttonhole coworkers and his boss and show off the clippings. The boss might earn more money, but he did not have a son at Princeton.
Harold could not summon the nerve to show the adviser fake documents. A few years earlier, he had failed to obtain a genuine Social Security card (his father had acquired one years earlier; he says he was never asked for proof of immigration status). All Harold would have had to do was flash his fake green card at a government clerk in Long Branch, N.J. If a clerk could intimidate him, how much more would a Princeton official?
He decided he had to confess, but first he confided in someone he had come to trust — his professor in Latin American literature, Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones.
The professor closed the door to his office, and they sat down at a small table. Harold did not utter a word. The tensions that had built up spilled out. He dropped his head on the table and wept.
Professor Díaz put his hand on his shoulder consolingly. After a few minutes, Harold collected himself and unfolded his saga. Professor Díaz seemed to listen to the tale as if it were a picaresque novel. Professor Díaz, who still teaches at Princeton, recalls that when Harold was done, he advised him not to tell anyone and to keep at his schoolwork. He says he assured Harold that he would speak to Mrs. Issawi and to the university’s president, William G. Bowen.
A few days later, Harold was asked to meet with Ms. Kanach. He found her just as friendly in person as in her letter congratulating him on his record. Ms. Kanach, who is now senior associate dean of the college, remembers the encounter only vaguely. Harold says he remembers it clearly. He says she told him Princeton was proud to have him as a student but identified two formidable problems he had created for the university. First, he had broken Princeton’s honor code, which essentially affirms that students will not cheat or lie. Moreover, he had improperly received government money intended for American citizens or permanent residents.
“Just as I was feeling crushed by the gravity of these issues,” he remembers, “she went on to say: ‘But, Harold, both problems have solutions.’ ”
To address the first, he would have to write an essay explaining his understanding of the honor code, how he had broken it and why he deserved a pardon. To resolve the second, Princeton would change his status to that of a foreign student and furnish grants and loans with its own funds, laying out more than $16,000 a year. It was like having a full Princeton scholarship.
Ms. Aronson confirms that the university engaged in this practice for some foreign-born students, adding that since 2001, Princeton has replaced all need-based loans with grants, “regardless of national origin.” Also, the admissions office does not consider immigration status in making its decisions, she says, and “there are no laws that would require us to do so.”
Harold says, “I think the fact that I was doing so well in my courses and was playing on a school soccer team helped my case. Nevertheless, I was moved by the school’s generosity toward someone whom they could have shrugged off as an unscrupulous intruder.”
He left Ms. Kanach’s office feeling enormous relief, he says, but he was not in the clear. He was no longer an impostor at Princeton, but his family was illegally in the United States. Authorities could still send them back to Colombia. With that as well, Princeton would help.
Harold traveled home for a weekend to tell his parents what had happened, but in reverse order. Princeton had offered a meeting with a university lawyer who specialized in immigration so that his parents might legalize their status. And then he told them about his confession.
His mother sat next to him gently crying. Even today, she agonizes over the decision to immigrate illegally, and what it put her children through. She expressed appreciation to Princeton and said: “Harold, mi amor, you are doing great. Keep working hard and they will keep on helping you.”
EPILOGUE
The family attained legal residency, and among the arguments on their behalf was a letter from a Princeton alumnus then in the Senate, Bill Bradley. Harold Fernandez went on to graduate from Princeton magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1989, and to train at Harvard Medical School and New York University Medical Center. Now 44, he is a cardiac surgeon affiliated with St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, N.Y., where he performs bypass operations and valve replacements that allow his patients to live longer, more vigorous lives.
Joseph Berger, a metro reporter for The Times, is working with Harold Fernandez on a memoir. This article is adapted from the book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03alien-t.html
Friday, September 18, 2009
Children of families split by immigration policy speak at Highland Park rally
By RICK MALWITZ
STAFF WRITER
MyCentralJersey.com
Eight children told emotional stories about how U.S. immigration policy has fractured their families, at one of 11 Children's Vigils held in the state Tuesday to draw attention to the break-up of families.
Naomi Harahap, 11, of Metuchen, told of visits to her father, Merwan, at an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, not being able to touch him but having to press her hand on one side of thick glass, while he pressed his hand on the other side.
"I want to hug him," said Harahap, whose father was deported to Indonesia in February, while her mother, Riasari, no longer wears a dress to church because she is embarrassed by the bulky ankle brace she must wear while her application for asylum is on appeal.
Valdio Toar, 15, of Woodbridge told how he was awakened on the morning of May 12, 2006, by a commotion in his home, and thought he was dreaming when an immigration official pointed a gun at him.
"This only happens in the movies," is what he said he thought.
For him, the story got worse when he heard his mother tell him, "They took Daddy."
His memory of that day was of "hiding from people who we thought we were good."
Four months, later his father, Frankie Toar, was deported to Indonesia.
The rallies were sponsored by the NJ Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, a coalition of human rights and religious groups. The church here became involved when its pastoral staff learned of Indonesian families split up by immigration policy.
What makes life complicated for most of the children who attended the vigil here is that they are American citizens, by virtue of having been born in the United States.
However, if their parents were in the United States on expired tourist visas when their children were born here, they are subject to detention and deportation.
Among the eight children who told their stories, all had their father taken away, while their mother was allowed to stay, even though their mother's immigration status was the same as her husband.
"Why do they always take the men?" asked Sharon Tuju, 9, of Woodbridge.
Those who attended the vigil here were encouraged to sign petitions urging their congressman to support HR 182, a resolution in the House of Representatives that would allow immigration judges to take into account family status of those facing deportation.
"We're demanding "family values' in our immigration policy," said Anne Barron, a member of Middlesex County First Friends, a volunteer group that visits detainees at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick.
The Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, pastor of the Reformed Church, allowed how he understands the need for immigration policy, and the work of the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), which conducted the raids that netted the parents of the children who spoke.
"There are terrorists, who want to come here (to the United States). I want there to be an ICE. But the families I know are not a threat. They are hard-working people who came here with a dream," said Kaper-Dale.
"ICE is sensitive to the fact that encountering those who violate our immigration laws may impact families," said Harold Ort, a public affairs officer for ICE. "For parents who are ordered removed, it is their decision whether or not to relocate their children with them."
Riasari Harahap explained that she and her husband came to the United States in 1997. Her parents and a brother and sister preceded her into this country.
As members of the Seventh-Day Adventist congregation in Indonesia, they faced persecution in Indonesia, according to an e-mail Merwan sent from Indonesia to immigration authorities, as part of his effort to be allowed to return to his family in New Jersey.
Since he was deported, he has been unable to find work in Indonesia. Riasari sends him whatever money she can, which is not much. She said she earns $7.35 an hour working at a warehouse in Carteret, pays $25 a week to the person who drives her to and from work, and pays $895 in rent.
The ankle bracelet allows ICE officials to monitor her whereabouts.
"They treat her like a criminal. My mother is not a criminal," said Naomi.
Naomi concluded her remarks by saying, "Life stinks for me right now. I want to go back to what it was. God bless America."
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090915/NEWS/909150366
STAFF WRITER
MyCentralJersey.com
Eight children told emotional stories about how U.S. immigration policy has fractured their families, at one of 11 Children's Vigils held in the state Tuesday to draw attention to the break-up of families.
Naomi Harahap, 11, of Metuchen, told of visits to her father, Merwan, at an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, not being able to touch him but having to press her hand on one side of thick glass, while he pressed his hand on the other side.
"I want to hug him," said Harahap, whose father was deported to Indonesia in February, while her mother, Riasari, no longer wears a dress to church because she is embarrassed by the bulky ankle brace she must wear while her application for asylum is on appeal.
Valdio Toar, 15, of Woodbridge told how he was awakened on the morning of May 12, 2006, by a commotion in his home, and thought he was dreaming when an immigration official pointed a gun at him.
"This only happens in the movies," is what he said he thought.
For him, the story got worse when he heard his mother tell him, "They took Daddy."
His memory of that day was of "hiding from people who we thought we were good."
Four months, later his father, Frankie Toar, was deported to Indonesia.
The rallies were sponsored by the NJ Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, a coalition of human rights and religious groups. The church here became involved when its pastoral staff learned of Indonesian families split up by immigration policy.
What makes life complicated for most of the children who attended the vigil here is that they are American citizens, by virtue of having been born in the United States.
However, if their parents were in the United States on expired tourist visas when their children were born here, they are subject to detention and deportation.
Among the eight children who told their stories, all had their father taken away, while their mother was allowed to stay, even though their mother's immigration status was the same as her husband.
"Why do they always take the men?" asked Sharon Tuju, 9, of Woodbridge.
Those who attended the vigil here were encouraged to sign petitions urging their congressman to support HR 182, a resolution in the House of Representatives that would allow immigration judges to take into account family status of those facing deportation.
"We're demanding "family values' in our immigration policy," said Anne Barron, a member of Middlesex County First Friends, a volunteer group that visits detainees at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick.
The Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, pastor of the Reformed Church, allowed how he understands the need for immigration policy, and the work of the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), which conducted the raids that netted the parents of the children who spoke.
"There are terrorists, who want to come here (to the United States). I want there to be an ICE. But the families I know are not a threat. They are hard-working people who came here with a dream," said Kaper-Dale.
"ICE is sensitive to the fact that encountering those who violate our immigration laws may impact families," said Harold Ort, a public affairs officer for ICE. "For parents who are ordered removed, it is their decision whether or not to relocate their children with them."
Riasari Harahap explained that she and her husband came to the United States in 1997. Her parents and a brother and sister preceded her into this country.
As members of the Seventh-Day Adventist congregation in Indonesia, they faced persecution in Indonesia, according to an e-mail Merwan sent from Indonesia to immigration authorities, as part of his effort to be allowed to return to his family in New Jersey.
Since he was deported, he has been unable to find work in Indonesia. Riasari sends him whatever money she can, which is not much. She said she earns $7.35 an hour working at a warehouse in Carteret, pays $25 a week to the person who drives her to and from work, and pays $895 in rent.
The ankle bracelet allows ICE officials to monitor her whereabouts.
"They treat her like a criminal. My mother is not a criminal," said Naomi.
Naomi concluded her remarks by saying, "Life stinks for me right now. I want to go back to what it was. God bless America."
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090915/NEWS/909150366
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Pastors call for an end to detentions and deportations that break up families, at Morristown vigils
By Jamie Duffy
NJ.Com
September 16, 2009
More than four million children born in the U.S. live with one parent who is an illegal immigrant and could be deported.
There are another 1.5 million children who are living here illegally themselves, but have siblings who are citizens.
In the last ten years, more than 108,000 illegal immigrants have been deported leaving behind families.
Some people want this to stop.
"God is the father of all, documented and undocumented. No one is illegal," said Father Hernan Arias, pastor of St. Margaret's of Scotland R.C. Church on Speedwell Avenue in Morristown.
"Stop taking our fathers and mothers in prison. Stop breaking our homes," he said, before numerous candles were lit on a table signifying The Day of the Children/El Dia de Los Ninos, a state vigil organized by a group of churches and non-profits like the Salvation Army and the American Friends Service Committee.
In Morristown, it was the immigrant rights group Wind of the Spirit that served as the main organizer, providing signs that proclaimed "No Human Being is Illegal," in English and in Spanish.
At the St. Margaret's Vigil, Amparo Guevara tearfully related how her husband had been deported June 27 after two lawyers had failed to get it right. One even lost the papers.
Once they were found, she got another lawyer who will work on the case. But her husband is now back in Colombia.
At the United Latin American Pentecostal Church on Spring Street, where a later vigil was held, there were at least two cases where deportation has been threatened. For Pastor Antonio "Tony" Arias, deportation is close to home. His own brother is currently incarcerated and has deportation orders.
His mother and father came to the front of the church with organizers and other church members to send up a prayer to God for help and for illumination for Donald Cresitello, the outgoing mayor of Morristown who still is working hard to implement 287(g), the federal program that deputizes police officers as immigration officers. He faces a new hurdle: The police union must now approve the measure.
In July, Morristown was chosen as one of 11 new municipalities to participate in the program, with the proviso that the PBA must approve it.
Both the Democratic mayoral candidate, Tim Dougherty, and Republican candidate Jimmy Gervasio have said they do not back the proposal. Opponents argue that the measure divides the community and makes undocumented workers avoid reporting crime.
"I get so frustrated when people call them criminals, when they're only coming because they're forced to provide for their families," said Brother John Skrodinsky, who leads the migrant ministry of the Diocese or Paterson.
Skrodinsky told one story, in Spanish and English, of a Mexican couple who are here illegally. The man came first and then returned, because he hated being separated from his family. With both spouses working, they still couldn't afford to buy soup.
"That's really what forces people to come," he said.
http://www.nj.com/morristown/jamieduffy/index.ssf/2009/09/pastors_and_people_call_for_an.html
NJ.Com
September 16, 2009
More than four million children born in the U.S. live with one parent who is an illegal immigrant and could be deported.
There are another 1.5 million children who are living here illegally themselves, but have siblings who are citizens.
In the last ten years, more than 108,000 illegal immigrants have been deported leaving behind families.
Some people want this to stop.
"God is the father of all, documented and undocumented. No one is illegal," said Father Hernan Arias, pastor of St. Margaret's of Scotland R.C. Church on Speedwell Avenue in Morristown.
"Stop taking our fathers and mothers in prison. Stop breaking our homes," he said, before numerous candles were lit on a table signifying The Day of the Children/El Dia de Los Ninos, a state vigil organized by a group of churches and non-profits like the Salvation Army and the American Friends Service Committee.
In Morristown, it was the immigrant rights group Wind of the Spirit that served as the main organizer, providing signs that proclaimed "No Human Being is Illegal," in English and in Spanish.
At the St. Margaret's Vigil, Amparo Guevara tearfully related how her husband had been deported June 27 after two lawyers had failed to get it right. One even lost the papers.
Once they were found, she got another lawyer who will work on the case. But her husband is now back in Colombia.
At the United Latin American Pentecostal Church on Spring Street, where a later vigil was held, there were at least two cases where deportation has been threatened. For Pastor Antonio "Tony" Arias, deportation is close to home. His own brother is currently incarcerated and has deportation orders.
His mother and father came to the front of the church with organizers and other church members to send up a prayer to God for help and for illumination for Donald Cresitello, the outgoing mayor of Morristown who still is working hard to implement 287(g), the federal program that deputizes police officers as immigration officers. He faces a new hurdle: The police union must now approve the measure.
In July, Morristown was chosen as one of 11 new municipalities to participate in the program, with the proviso that the PBA must approve it.
Both the Democratic mayoral candidate, Tim Dougherty, and Republican candidate Jimmy Gervasio have said they do not back the proposal. Opponents argue that the measure divides the community and makes undocumented workers avoid reporting crime.
"I get so frustrated when people call them criminals, when they're only coming because they're forced to provide for their families," said Brother John Skrodinsky, who leads the migrant ministry of the Diocese or Paterson.
Skrodinsky told one story, in Spanish and English, of a Mexican couple who are here illegally. The man came first and then returned, because he hated being separated from his family. With both spouses working, they still couldn't afford to buy soup.
"That's really what forces people to come," he said.
http://www.nj.com/morristown/jamieduffy/index.ssf/2009/09/pastors_and_people_call_for_an.html
Monday, September 14, 2009
Immigrant advocates to hold candlelight vigil in Morristown
By Minhaj Hassan
Staff Writer, DailyRecord.com
September 11, 2009
The New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees will hold a candlelight vigil at St. Margaret’s Church, located at 6 Sussex Ave., at 6 p.m. Tuesday to support the rights of children who may be at risk of being separated from their families because of deportations or detentions.
Morristown is a hotbed for immigration issues, given Mayor Donald Cresitello’s support for a controversial federal program that calls for deputizing police officers to serve as immigration agents. Known as 287(g), the mayor has yet to sign an agreement to put the program in place.
The church where the rally will take place, St. Margaret’s Church, is attended by many Hispanics, some of whom are undocumented.
Officials said the vigil is intended to show support for children who live in households where at least one parent is undocumented or is a legal permanent resident.
Participants will call for an end to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, detentions and deportations because they cause children to separated from their families. The participants will share stories of being separated from their families and will call for federal immigration legislation that prevents the break-up of families
Diana Mejia, who heads the local immigrant resource center, said the 287(g) program will split families and divide the community.
“The people here in Morristown reject the idea that immigrants are to be treated like criminals,” she said. “People in our community from all walks of life are coming out in droves in support of all families who work and live in our town - with or without papers. We are all members of the same community.”
According to the American Friends Service Committee, an immigrant rights group, New Jersey is detaining some 1,000 immigrants in county jails or the Elizabeth Detention Center.
Morristown is one of 10 municipalities where an immigration reform vigil is taking place. The other towns include Bridgeton, Dumont, Freehold, Hightstown, Jersey City, Highland Park, Keyport, Montclair and Newark.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20090911/UPDATES01/90911019
Staff Writer, DailyRecord.com
September 11, 2009
The New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees will hold a candlelight vigil at St. Margaret’s Church, located at 6 Sussex Ave., at 6 p.m. Tuesday to support the rights of children who may be at risk of being separated from their families because of deportations or detentions.
Morristown is a hotbed for immigration issues, given Mayor Donald Cresitello’s support for a controversial federal program that calls for deputizing police officers to serve as immigration agents. Known as 287(g), the mayor has yet to sign an agreement to put the program in place.
The church where the rally will take place, St. Margaret’s Church, is attended by many Hispanics, some of whom are undocumented.
Officials said the vigil is intended to show support for children who live in households where at least one parent is undocumented or is a legal permanent resident.
Participants will call for an end to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, detentions and deportations because they cause children to separated from their families. The participants will share stories of being separated from their families and will call for federal immigration legislation that prevents the break-up of families
Diana Mejia, who heads the local immigrant resource center, said the 287(g) program will split families and divide the community.
“The people here in Morristown reject the idea that immigrants are to be treated like criminals,” she said. “People in our community from all walks of life are coming out in droves in support of all families who work and live in our town - with or without papers. We are all members of the same community.”
According to the American Friends Service Committee, an immigrant rights group, New Jersey is detaining some 1,000 immigrants in county jails or the Elizabeth Detention Center.
Morristown is one of 10 municipalities where an immigration reform vigil is taking place. The other towns include Bridgeton, Dumont, Freehold, Hightstown, Jersey City, Highland Park, Keyport, Montclair and Newark.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20090911/UPDATES01/90911019
Saturday, August 29, 2009
HIGHTSTOWN: Prayer vigil set to support anti-deportation bill
By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Writer
August 27, 2009
HIGHTSTOWN — Members of the St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church community will hold a prayer vigil next month in support of federal legislation that would give immigration judges more discretion over deportations when families and children are involved.
The church’s Social Justice Group, along with the Trenton Diocese Justice Steering Committee and a number of other local churches and synagogues have planned the vigil at the St. Anthony’s church building on Franklin Street for 7 p.m. Sept. 15. The gathering will be to support a bill now in the U.S. House of Representatives, HR-1176, called the “Child Citizen Protection Bill.”
If signed into law, it would grant immigration judges more leeway when deciding the fate of the undocumented if children and families would be affected by deportation.
“The goal of this vigil is to make people aware that we’ve got close to 4 million U.S. citizen children who lived in families where one or two parents lack documents,” said Lenore Isleib, co-coordinator of the Social Justice Group with her husband, Leigh.
“These people are at risk of being detained or even deported,” she added.
The church’s pastor, The Rev. Patrick McDonnell, agreed.
“Some families live here with no safety or security at all,” he said. “If you just take a parent away and send them back to their native land, you are fracturing a family. Anything we can do keep these families safe and together is worth our prayers.”
The vigil will feature a prayer service that will be based on the Principles of Catholic Social Teaching, Ms. Isleib said. Afterward, anyone in attendance will have the opportunity to sign letters the group will be sending to legislators in support of the bill.
HR-1176 was sponsored by Rep. Jose Serrano, D-NY, and introduced into the U.S. Congress in February. It awaits action and debate in three separate committees before it reaches the House floor.
http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2009/08/27/windsor_hights_herald/news/doc4a96e49e16f0c251345015.txt
August 27, 2009
HIGHTSTOWN — Members of the St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church community will hold a prayer vigil next month in support of federal legislation that would give immigration judges more discretion over deportations when families and children are involved.
The church’s Social Justice Group, along with the Trenton Diocese Justice Steering Committee and a number of other local churches and synagogues have planned the vigil at the St. Anthony’s church building on Franklin Street for 7 p.m. Sept. 15. The gathering will be to support a bill now in the U.S. House of Representatives, HR-1176, called the “Child Citizen Protection Bill.”
If signed into law, it would grant immigration judges more leeway when deciding the fate of the undocumented if children and families would be affected by deportation.
“The goal of this vigil is to make people aware that we’ve got close to 4 million U.S. citizen children who lived in families where one or two parents lack documents,” said Lenore Isleib, co-coordinator of the Social Justice Group with her husband, Leigh.
“These people are at risk of being detained or even deported,” she added.
The church’s pastor, The Rev. Patrick McDonnell, agreed.
“Some families live here with no safety or security at all,” he said. “If you just take a parent away and send them back to their native land, you are fracturing a family. Anything we can do keep these families safe and together is worth our prayers.”
The vigil will feature a prayer service that will be based on the Principles of Catholic Social Teaching, Ms. Isleib said. Afterward, anyone in attendance will have the opportunity to sign letters the group will be sending to legislators in support of the bill.
HR-1176 was sponsored by Rep. Jose Serrano, D-NY, and introduced into the U.S. Congress in February. It awaits action and debate in three separate committees before it reaches the House floor.
http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2009/08/27/windsor_hights_herald/news/doc4a96e49e16f0c251345015.txt
Friday, July 24, 2009
Report: NY, NJ immigration raids violated rights
By DEEPTI HAJELA
The Associated Press
July 23, 2009
NEW YORK — Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.
Latinos made up a disproportionate number of the people arrested who were not the stated targets of the raids, and many of their arrest reports gave no basis for why they were initially seized, said the report, which was based on data from raids in New York and New Jersey.
The Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law analyzed home raid arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Long Island and throughout New Jersey. The clinic, founded last year, represents indigent immigrants facing deportation.
Its report, released Wednesday, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants — instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access — they must have a resident's consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.
On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given, the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.
Peter Markowitz, director of the clinic and one of the authors of the report, said raids often are carried out with great force, with immigration officials pushing their way into homes in pre-dawn or late-night hours.
The raids are ostensibly aimed at targeted individuals who present threats either to national security or community safety, but arrests of illegal immigrants nearby, known as collateral arrests, are also made.
While the report only analyzed data from two states, it said the pattern suggested the problem was nationwide. It listed examples from California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Georgia and other places.
A federal judge in Connecticut last month ruled that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in a 2007 raid under similar issues. The judge ruled the immigration agents went into the immigrants' homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants.
"The widespread illegality by a law enforcement agency should be kind of shocking to anybody," Markowitz said.
In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country's laws.
"We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter," it said.
The agency said it also had a mandate to pursue all illegal immigrants, whether targeted or not. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment further.
The agency has about 100 Fugitive Operations Teams around the country; in fiscal year 2008, the teams made more than 34,000 arrests.
The report also found that Latinos were a disproportionate number of collateral arrests. In both New Jersey and on Long Island, two-thirds of the targeted detainees were Latino. But 87 percent of collateral arrests in New Jersey were Latino, as were 94 percent of the collateral arrests in Long Island.
Collateral arrest records can indicate why the person was seized and questioned. But the report found that almost all of the records that didn't contain that information were for Latinos taken into custody. The report said that supported community complaints that Latinos were targeted for arrest simply because of how they looked or how well they spoke English.
The report makes several recommendations, including limiting the use of home raids to a last resort for targets who pose a serious risk to national security or have violent criminal records; the use of judicial rather than administrative warrants, and the videotaping of all home raids.
It also calls for the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to conduct an investigation.
"These are violations that go to the very heart of the Constitutional expectation of privacy in this country," Markowitz said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jE_zsdA7eB5XpncPXAxlqGHIwufAD99J8U602
The Associated Press
July 23, 2009
NEW YORK — Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.
Latinos made up a disproportionate number of the people arrested who were not the stated targets of the raids, and many of their arrest reports gave no basis for why they were initially seized, said the report, which was based on data from raids in New York and New Jersey.
The Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law analyzed home raid arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Long Island and throughout New Jersey. The clinic, founded last year, represents indigent immigrants facing deportation.
Its report, released Wednesday, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants — instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access — they must have a resident's consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.
On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given, the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.
Peter Markowitz, director of the clinic and one of the authors of the report, said raids often are carried out with great force, with immigration officials pushing their way into homes in pre-dawn or late-night hours.
The raids are ostensibly aimed at targeted individuals who present threats either to national security or community safety, but arrests of illegal immigrants nearby, known as collateral arrests, are also made.
While the report only analyzed data from two states, it said the pattern suggested the problem was nationwide. It listed examples from California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Georgia and other places.
A federal judge in Connecticut last month ruled that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in a 2007 raid under similar issues. The judge ruled the immigration agents went into the immigrants' homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants.
"The widespread illegality by a law enforcement agency should be kind of shocking to anybody," Markowitz said.
In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country's laws.
"We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter," it said.
The agency said it also had a mandate to pursue all illegal immigrants, whether targeted or not. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment further.
The agency has about 100 Fugitive Operations Teams around the country; in fiscal year 2008, the teams made more than 34,000 arrests.
The report also found that Latinos were a disproportionate number of collateral arrests. In both New Jersey and on Long Island, two-thirds of the targeted detainees were Latino. But 87 percent of collateral arrests in New Jersey were Latino, as were 94 percent of the collateral arrests in Long Island.
Collateral arrest records can indicate why the person was seized and questioned. But the report found that almost all of the records that didn't contain that information were for Latinos taken into custody. The report said that supported community complaints that Latinos were targeted for arrest simply because of how they looked or how well they spoke English.
The report makes several recommendations, including limiting the use of home raids to a last resort for targets who pose a serious risk to national security or have violent criminal records; the use of judicial rather than administrative warrants, and the videotaping of all home raids.
It also calls for the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to conduct an investigation.
"These are violations that go to the very heart of the Constitutional expectation of privacy in this country," Markowitz said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jE_zsdA7eB5XpncPXAxlqGHIwufAD99J8U602
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Gathering hopes for Latino immigration reform
Friday, April 24, 2009
By CARMEN JURI
THE STAR-LEDGER (New Jersey)
Since January, when immigration officials banged on her Union City apartment door and arrested her, Paola Leiva has worn an electronic ankle bracelet that monitors her movements.
She was placed on a 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. home curfew and every day, for three hours, she sits connected to a power outlet while the monitoring device recharges.
Leiva, 32, who crossed the border to the United States from Honduras in 2004, said she was nearly deported this month, but authorities have agreed to reopen her case after an advocacy group came to her defense. She said she does not want to return home to San Pedro and said her two children are American-born and deserve protection under the Constitution.
"What future can my kids have there (in Honduras)?" asked Leiva.
Tomorrow, Leiva and others hope to speak to members of Congress at a community gathering to promote immigration reform in Elizabeth.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, U.S. Rep Albio Sires, D-Hudson, and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, say they plan to attend the event, which is co-sponsored by the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey and the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders.
The gathering, scheduled from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Iglesia Jesucristo es el Senor church, is part of a national effort to bring attention to the importance of immigration reform and highlight some of the hardships brought about by what they call a broken system, organizers said.
It involves prayer vigils and town-hall meetings in cities across America. At each event, U.S. citizens share testimony as to how their families have been or risk being torn apart by a broken immigration system, they said.
"We want the public to hear testimonials from American citizens whose lives have been ripped apart by the raids and deportations that have been a cornerstone of federal immigration policy for the last few years," said Martin Perez, president of the alliance.
http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/124055435171780.xml&coll=3
By CARMEN JURI
THE STAR-LEDGER (New Jersey)
Since January, when immigration officials banged on her Union City apartment door and arrested her, Paola Leiva has worn an electronic ankle bracelet that monitors her movements.
She was placed on a 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. home curfew and every day, for three hours, she sits connected to a power outlet while the monitoring device recharges.
Leiva, 32, who crossed the border to the United States from Honduras in 2004, said she was nearly deported this month, but authorities have agreed to reopen her case after an advocacy group came to her defense. She said she does not want to return home to San Pedro and said her two children are American-born and deserve protection under the Constitution.
"What future can my kids have there (in Honduras)?" asked Leiva.
Tomorrow, Leiva and others hope to speak to members of Congress at a community gathering to promote immigration reform in Elizabeth.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, U.S. Rep Albio Sires, D-Hudson, and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, say they plan to attend the event, which is co-sponsored by the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey and the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders.
The gathering, scheduled from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Iglesia Jesucristo es el Senor church, is part of a national effort to bring attention to the importance of immigration reform and highlight some of the hardships brought about by what they call a broken system, organizers said.
It involves prayer vigils and town-hall meetings in cities across America. At each event, U.S. citizens share testimony as to how their families have been or risk being torn apart by a broken immigration system, they said.
"We want the public to hear testimonials from American citizens whose lives have been ripped apart by the raids and deportations that have been a cornerstone of federal immigration policy for the last few years," said Martin Perez, president of the alliance.
http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/124055435171780.xml&coll=3
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)