Hiding In Plain Sight

Great article by New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/features/52589/

Its long but its the utter-most accurate description of our situation.
For the lazy ones here are some of the good passages.......


"Although they broke the law,” Mayor Bloomberg told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, “our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported.”

“They live like ghost citizens,” says Kelly Fincham, executive director of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. “They’re here, but they’re not here.”

A century ago, a migrant like Alberto could have crossed the open Southwest border as he pleased. Fifty years ago, with immigration still unrestricted within the Western Hemisphere, he might have gained admittance after a head tax and literacy test. Thirty years ago, he would have entered unlawfully and then been rescued by the amnesty of the late eighties. But Alberto joined a later cohort, the surge that followed passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. More than anything, NAFTA crystallized a neocolonial conceit: that the U.S. could foster a free flow of trade and capital while freezing Mexican labor in its tracks. The hitch was that people, unlike commodities, moved of their own accord. Unable to compete with subsidized American corn, Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods—and where else could they go?

In fairness, there is no real “line” for people like Alberto to wait in: no diversity visas for high-sending countries; no slots for unskilled workers; little practical hope for relatives of U.S. citizens. (For Mexicans, the wait period for family-reunification green cards currently stretches up to 40 years.) Denied legal entry, the people came anyway, often to join legal relatives who came before. As Joseph Salvo of the Department of City Planning puts it, “The documented and the undocumented are sitting across the same table, having dinner every night.”

Like all New York residents, Berto and Juliana will be eligible for in-state tuition at CUNY or SUNY. But they’ll be barred from government grants and loans or paid internships, a sneak preview of the formal job market. One of Maulik’s former Queens youth leaders was a slight 23-year-old named Rajesh, an undocumented Trinidadian of Indian descent. A high-school valedictorian, he began his senior year pointing toward medical school. “I wanted to help people,” he said. “I wanted to be a pediatrician. I like kids.” But that fall, when he needed a Social Security number for some scholarship forms, Rajesh realized he was out of the game. He slogged through premed at Hunter College, going through the motions. “I felt like I wasted a lot of time,” he said. “You want to do good, but what’s the point?” Now 23, he works construction full-time for a family friend.

Though he knew where $200 could buy a Social Security number and a forged green card—magic tickets into an aboveground economy—Alberto did not dare make the purchase. While “unlawful presence” is but a civil violation, a fake document can bring down a felony charge. “My children are small,” Alberto said. He was afraid to take the risk.

Those who moved to this country before their early teens, the “1.5 generation,” have punched a one-way ticket. “What are they going to do in Guatemala or Mexico or Ecuador?” says Marguerite Lukes of NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. “They speak the language, but they’re from a different culture. It would be like immigrating.”

Though immigration reform barely surfaced during the fall election campaign, Obama’s intentions might be signaled by his likely choice for secretary of Homeland Security, the department that oversees ICE: Janet Napolitano, the Arizona governor who has backed harsh penalties for those who hire the undocumented while opposing the criminalization of the workers themselves. Advocates dare to hope for a regenerated DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which would give youngsters like Berto and Juliana a route to legalization through either college or military service. “That’s the kissing-babies issue,” Smith says. “I think we’ll probably get something for the kids. The thing for the grown-ups is a whole other fight.”

WOW, there has been a whole lot of pro-dream articles.

My favorite part of the passage.
So true.

I hope that these pro-DREAM articles will actually help when the day comes.
[in '09, hopefully]