This is not a rhetorical question: would you have the guts to appear on the cover of Time magazine if you were in their shoes?
Featured on the magazine’s cover between the phrases “We Are Americans*” and “*Just not legally,” Vargas is joined by other undocumented immigrants from around the world. The men and women pictured along with Vargas also recently came out of the shadows and revealed their immigration status publicly.
In the introduction to the cover story, Vargas argues that the immigration system is fundamentally broken and that it prevents deserving candidates, many of who identify as American, from residing in the country legally. Vargas also discusses his new campaign, Define American.
“I founded a campaign called Define American, to document the lives of the undocumented and harness the support of our allies around this very controversial and misunderstood issue,” Vargas writes. “There are an estimated 11.5 million people like me in this country, human beings with stories as varied as America itself, yet lacking a legal claim to exist here,” Vargas adds.
There has never been an American administration more likely to order the deportation of otherwise law-abiding people, with families who rely on them and lives built in America. Three hundred and ninety seven thousand were deported in 2011 alone. Would you have the guts to stand up as an illegal and call for changes to the system that breaks families apart?
Honestly, I don’t think I’m brave enough for that. I don’t think I’m brave enough to risk an eight year old autistic child who has had his Daddy around to help and educate him every day of his life wondering aloud for a year, 18 months or more where Daddy has gone. I couldn’t do it.
Update: Obama finally takes some affirmative action. It’s politically motivated, it’s not enough and it’s taken to long – but that shouldn’t detract from the hope it gives 800,000 young people. Thirty-two of the thirty-three people on that Time cover above are now safe. Jose isn’t, he’s too old by a year for Obama’s initiative.
I’ve learned one thing in 43 years and that’s to keep my head down.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows,or with both~FDouglas
and what a shameful way that America treats people like this! I am ashamed to be an American when I read stories like this and I am particularly ashamed of President Obama for kow-towing to the right-wing fascists who demonize immigrants when we are, in fact, a nation of immigrants. Except for American Indians (indigenous people), we are all illegal aliens!!!
We used to look at both Soviet Russia and Communist China with great disdain because they wouldn’t let anyone in or their own citizens out.
Now it is the U.S. that puts up great barriers to entrance and even greater barriers via tax and treasury laws for Americans who want to live abroad.
White House to halt deportation of young illegal immigrants.
The White House will halt the deportation of as many as 800,000 young illegal immigrants and in some cases give them work permits, in a sweeping new initiative announced by the Department of Homeland Security.
People under 30 who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas when they were under the age of 16 will be immune from deportation if they have not committed a significant misdemeanor or felony and have graduated from a U.S. high school or joined the military. They can apply for a renewable two-year work permit that won’t provide a path to citizenship but will allow them to work legally in the country. Applicants will have to prove they’ve lived in the country for five consecutive years.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters on Friday that she believed the move “is the right thing to do,” and will help the agency focus on deporting criminals. “It is not immunity, it is not amnesty,” she said. “It is an exercise of discretion so that these young people are not in the removal system.”
Young people will have to proactively apply and pay for the temporary legal status at a local United State Citizenship and Immigration Services office. If the deferred status is granted, they can apply for a work permit.
mean those who apply risk the rest of their family being deported?
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. ~ Phil Jackson
but if it had been in force a few years back when I submitted my first piece to The Agonist I Had A Dream…, there might have been a happy ending to the story. “One small step for man…,”
The Quillayute Cowboy