The outsider (update on Juan)

questionsihave · 01:52 PM

A College Student Fights Deportation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2009022002446

"Though he's lived in this country since he was 2, Juan Gomez has no permanent legal right to stay in the United States, let alone a guarantee of a chance to graduate from Georgetown University."

"I focus on my academics," he says." I focus on what I can control."

"In 2007, the Senate considered and rejected the Dream Act, which would have given these young people a chance to become legal permanent residents. Critics of the bill warn that such exceptions would encourage people to come here illegally, particularly if they had young children in tow."

It's kinda of cool that I came in at the same age as Juan, and I am currently the same age as him. I also like his focus on academics quote.

Articles like this are good, because they give people in our situation exposure, especially during this economic crisis.

EDIT: This was a cover story.

Washington Post Magazine contributor Phuong Ly will be online Monday, February 23 at 12 noon ET to discuss her cover story, "The Outsider."

I have sent her a message to see how one could tell their story through the WashingtonPost. I think this would be a good idea to get people to tell their stories so to keep up our exposure especially during this economic crisis. I know there have been some interviews done through the good work of quaker/magraduate/others, so I was wondering if you all ever got into talks with big time newspapers (NYT, WP, LAt) about doing interviews?

FrankV · 02-22-2009, 04:42 PM

We need more stories like these to be on the news. I'm glad Juan is doing well, but hopefully he stays here in the U.S and the Dream Act passes this year.

Dr.Strangeluv · 02-22-2009, 08:45 PM

great story and all. but its kindda funny that you said..
you're currently the same age as him..
lol

questionsihave · 02-23-2009, 11:40 PM

Just wanted to update with the discussion the editor had with opinions and responses to the article.

A transcript follows.

____________________

Phuong Ly: Hi, thanks for reading the story and submitting your questions.

_______________________

Richmond, Virginia: Juan should be able to stay and graduate. He has grown in this country and is an American. It is not his fault his parents brought him when he was two years old. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Phuong Ly: Juan's story seemed to generate two types of responses. Here's one.

_______________________

Cumberland, Md.: This sort of story makes me angry that we fail to enforce our immigration laws. This kid should go back to Colombia and work to make his own country better. I am sorry I don't believe illegal immigrants have any rights to stay in this country regardless of their personal situation. These "sob" stories from WAPO infuriate me. Why is it so difficult to understand the concept of ILLEGAL ALIEN??

Phuong Ly: And here's the other.

... continues: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...021301295.html

Note: Dr.Strangeluv

Yeah, my bad. I should have said, "We are the same age."

questionsihave · 02-25-2009, 12:57 AM

I didn't want to start a new thread, so I will post it here.

This is about another undocumented student at Harvard. His name is also Juan, but he is different from the Juan reported about in "The Outsiders".

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news...fac5c1a3732130

"Los Angeles—Juan Hernandez-Campos, an undocumented engineering student, who completed his first semester at Harvard University, has been awarded a $50,000 per year scholarship to complete his studies at the ivy league school, reports Univison.com."

It is a pretty short article. Pretty impressive stuff.

camcam23 · 02-27-2009, 12:39 PM

I was researching on LexisNexis & found this:

Quote:

National Public Radio (NPR)

February 23, 2009 Monday

SHOW: Tell Me More 9:00 AM EST NPR

Immigrant College Student Fights To Remain In U.S.

LENGTH: 2112 words

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

And now we're taking our weekly look inside the pages of the Washington Post Magazine where we go every week for interesting stories about the way we live now. This week, the magazine tells the story of an exceptional young man. He's attending Georgetown Univeristy after earning top grades at a competitive urban high school, as well as high SAT and advanced placement scores and the respect and regard of his friends and family. In fact, he is the kind of young man any school would want, who has done everything right - except for one thing. Juan Gomez arrived in the U.S. with his family in 1990 from Columbia with a six-month tourist visa and never left. The U.S. government denied the family's appeal for political assylum, and eventually, his parents and grandmother were deported.

But Juan and his brother are still here, the beneficiaries of intensive lobbying by their classmates, intense media coverage, and efforts by members of Congress. And now Juan is living in a kind of middle world - accepted, admired, but not legal, making a life but a life that may not be his for long.

Juan Gomez is here with me in our Washington, D.C. studios - in full Georgetownn regalia, I should mention. His attorney, Cheryl Little, is also on the phone. She may or may not join in the conversation. I welcome you both. Thank you for speaking with us. Eva Marie Saint Mr. JUAN GOMEZ: Well, thank you for having me, Michel.

MARTIN: Juan, in the article, which was written by Phuong Ly, it mentions that you used to joke with your brother about immigration raiding your home, but when you were growing up, what did your parents tell you about your status? Did you all talk about this?

Mr. GOMEZ: Well, actually, growing up, from a very young age I understood that we were going through a legal process, applying for political asylum. It took, you know, a matter of 13 years just for them to give us a decision. So you know, from 1990 on to 2003 we were renewing our work permits, going through that whole process, just trying to figure out, you know, whether we'd be staying here. So it was always in the back of our minds, like, yeah, there was a legal process.

I sort of took the route that I was going to concentrate on the things that I can control in my life, such as my academics, my friends, my lifestyle in America, and then hopefully things would resolve themselves.

MARTIN: So you grew up with this kind of uncertainty, but I get the sense that it was always kind of in the back of your head...

Mr. GOMEZ: Right.

MARTIN: But you didn't really put it front and center. You grew up like an American kid.

Mr. GOMEZ: Exactly. It's - the best way to explain this is at that young of an age, you really have like no recollection of your memory. So they could have told me when I was four or five, Juan, we came from Mexico, Juan, we came from this country - and I would have believed them.

MARTIN: Your parents were detained by immigration authorities. Were you and your brother detained along with them?

Mr. GOMEZ: Right. Actually, I still remember the date, it was July 25th, 2007. You know, I'm sleeping, in my pajamas and everything. And I wake up, and my dad is running around saying, oh, immigration is here. And so, six in the morning, I look outside the windows and there's flashlights peering through my house. You know, I'm worried. I pretty much know what this means for our family, so I get my stuff, I try to get - all I have time for us to get my wallet, to get my dearest possessions, which is like my cell phones and everything.

And they come in our house with couple of police officers. You know, it seems like a raid for a family of criminals when, you know, you look back at my whole family, we've never committed a crime. So that was the hardest part pretty much, just being treated in that manner, you know, getting - them placing handcuffs on my brother, my father and myself, going to detention center...

MARTIN: They didn't put a handcuff on your mom?

Mr. GOMEZ: No, they didn't. It was actually harder for her to see them putting it on us, you know, something your mom never - never wants to see. And so, also going to the detention center, wearing orange jumpsuits, pretty much feeling like you're a criminal but failing to realize where you committed a crime.

MARTIN: When your family was detained - you know this now - that there was this intensive lobbying campaign going on by your friends. Did you know this was going on, your friends were calling the media, they were calling, you know, anybody they could think of, members of Congress - did you know about any of that?

Mr. GOMEZ: Well, actually, that was the difficult part just because there wasn't much I could do about it. But I was at the detention center, there was TV, and I remember - I think it was the second day after I had been detained - I go and check the news and I see a picture of myself in the local news station, and I'm just like, wow, what's going on? And so then they fill me in. They're telling me, we're launching this huge media effort. Soon thereafter, I got in contact with FIAC, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and my lawyer, Cherlyl Little and Kalin Corrigan(ph), so they started sort of guiding my friends, telling them what the best effort would be, just pretty much this whole like grassroots movement to sort of help my brother and I and help my family.

MARTIN: How did that feel?

Mr. GOMEZ: Well, I felt, you know, just to have those type of friends, you feel sort of special just to realize that you've surrounded yourself with these type of people and to realize that although some may believe you don't belong in this country, a small few are going to fight just as hard to make sure that you stay here.

MARTIN: The hope was that the Dream Act, which was designed to allow children like yourself - you're a young man now, you're 20 years old - but people who were brought here as very young children, have gone to American schools, have essentially made a life here, would have a chance to become legal permanent residents, the point being that, you know, you didn't make the decision to come here and that you've kind of done what you're supposed to do. But in 2007, the same year your family was detained, the Senate considered and rejected it. Do you remember that and how that made you feel?

Mr. GOMEZ: Actually, a couple of things around that time. One, the day before I had just figured out that my parents would be leaving in a week or so, their case had been decided, and then two, it was on my birthday that the Dream Act was actually rejected. So, yeah, I was definitely on top of things, definitely helping with calling campaigns, pushing for senators and representatives to hopefully vote for it. And then I just remembered it pretty much put me in a spot where my parents would be leaving in a week, but Senator Chris Dodd had introduced the Private Bill, which gave my brother and I until 2009, actually, until March. It gave us that leeway, but still, I knew I was going to have to deal with it without my parents and with the same as level of uncertainty that I've had for the last 18 years of my life.

MARTIN: If you're just joining us, this is Tell Me More from NPR News. I'm speaking with Juan Gomez. He's featured in this week's Washington Post Magazine. The story is called "The Outsider," and we're talking about his experiences as a young man who was raised in this country, although his parents came here and have since been deported.

Can I ask you - and it must be hard to talk about - but the story describes the day that your mother, father and grandmother were ultimately deported back to Colombia. Can you talk about it?

Mr. GOMEZ: It's very difficult for me to talk about it. I'll try. Leading up to that day, we had about, you know, a week or so for my parents to figure out how to get most of their possessions back to Colombia. I never had a driver's license, so I had to learn how to drive in a matter of three days, figure out how to pay bills, how to run a household pretty much because there was just going to be my brother and I living in a house. So that was the hard part, so the thing I miss the most was that I never really got a chance to say a really good formal goodbye, like have a good - spend a lot of time with my parents.

And then just the day of, it was really devastating, to say the least. I remember waiting in the airport terminal. It's one of those moments in your life where it doesn't really matter what you say or what you do at that point, it's not going to make the situation better. So all you've got to do is just cherish the last moments you have with your parents and your grandmother, not knowing when's the next time you're going to see them.

MARTIN: And you did wind up going to Georgetown. You were accepted as an international student. Do I have that right?

Mr. GOMEZ: Right, right. I was actually - I spent a year at Miami-Dade Honors College, and towards the end of the year, I decided, you know, my time here may be limited, why not take a chance? And May comes in and I got the admission letter, and it really made a problem in my life just to realize that, you know, even if I couldn't afford the school, I had gotten accepted, which is enough for me.

MARTIN: Can I ask why you and your brother didn't go back to Colombia? Was that ever discussed?

Mr. GOMEZ: Well, it definitely was, and what my parents decided, and you know, what we thought was it's almost like going back to a foreign country for us. As much as we know we were born in Colombia, we've grown up in the United States. We understand the opportunity we have here, and why am I going to go back and just give up after this country has invested so much to educate me? You know, I see it as better my education in order to better this country.

MARTIN: What do you say to those, though, who argue that - I know you said earlier in our conversation that you didn't do anything wrong.

Mr. GOMEZ: Right.

MARTIN: But there are those who would say by definition you did or your parents did.

Mr. GOMEZ: Right. Right.

MARTIN: What would you say to that? That...

Mr. GOMEZ: Well, what I would say is - I'm not going to go into the details of why my parents were here, why they stayed, but whatever their opinions are of my parents, they've paid for it. It's something where my brother and I never made the decision to come here. We did grow up here, and as much as they want to deny it, only pieces of paper are going to say that I'm not a true American in my heart. I've felt that I've devoted myself to this country, and then hopefully, I'll have the chance to continue to do so.

MARTIN: But what do you say to those who argue that pieces of paper are what civil society is all about? There have to be boundaries.

Mr. GOMEZ: There are boundaries, but you know, if we're ever going to tackle this issue of immigration in this country, I see the Dream Act as pretty much the stepping stone. You know, if we're going to go into arguing over whether certain individuals who made the conscious decision to come here should be punished or not or should be granted some sort of legalization, why not begin with those who didn't make the decision, those who can benefit this country, those who are looking for an education, looking to work in this country in high paying jobs? If we can't start there, then we're never going to be able to solve this issue.

MARTIN: If the Private Bill sponsored by Senator Dodd of Connecticut doesn't pass, what then?

Mr. GOMEZ: Well, the passage of the Dream Act is a long shot, but my lawyers are working extensively in order to have my brother get some sort of extension, and hopefully in that way we'd be able to prolong our stay here.

MARTIN: What do you dream about? We talked about the Dream Act. What's your dream?

Mr. GOMEZ: It's simple American dreams. You know, I've never lived a very ostentatious lifestyle. I've always - my family, we've been very - you know, we've had a very modest upbringing. You know, the dreams are pretty much hopefully to see my family again, but this time on good terms, not in the way that it ended. Hopefully, well, they can come back or where I can go visit after I've established myself, I've gotten my degree, I have an education, and just hopefully, in that way, just living the American dream.

MARTIN: Juan Gomez is a student at Georgetown University. He is featured in the story, "The Outsider." It's in this Sunday's Washington Post Magazine. If you want to read the piece in its entirety, you can find a link on our Web site at npr.org/tellmemore. The piece was written by Phuong Ly, and Juan Gomez is here with me in Washington. Good luck to you.

Mr. GOMEZ: Thank you.

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The outsider (update on Juan)