Tag Archives: U.S. Immigration Reform

Trail of Dreams Is Trail of Hope

March 16, 2010 at 10:48 AM

I found myself on the steps of the courthouse with other Amnesty International members. We were holding signs that read “Immigrant Rights Are Human Rights!” and holding our heads even higher. I was proud to be there. But I was prouder of the students making history by walking 1,500 miles for immigrants’ rights. And Atlanta was just one stop along their crucial march for legal recognition, the Trail of Dreams 2010.

Carlos Roa, Juan Rodriguez, Felipe Matos, Gaby Pacheco, photo credit: Joeff Davis/www.Joeff.com

Carlos Roa, Juan Rodriguez, Felipe Matos, Gaby Pacheco, photo credit: Joeff Davis/www.Joeff.com

The Trail of Dreams is a trail of hope. It is headed by young people, Felipe, Gaby, Carlos, and Juan, who may lack legal recognition in the US, but carry their human rights. It is a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington D.C to raise awareness about broken US immigration laws and to demand fair and humane immigration law and policy. It is a journey for these students, two of them undocumented, in their fight for rights.

The students walking represent the thousands of young immigrants who were brought to this country in their childhoods by parents who were trying to provide them with a better life. Many live in daily fear of arrest and deportation and have spent their entire lives hiding, understanding that they are considered ‘illegal’ human beings by some lawmakers and media pundits.

Every day in America, hundreds of thousands of young immigrants are unable to fully participate in society. They attend school, play sports and achieve good grades, but are prohibited from receiving any benefits such as in-state tuition to universities they dreamed of attending because they do not have lawful status. Worse, current immigration law provides no avenues for the vast majority of these students to legalize their status, no matter how well they do in school or how much they contribute to their communities. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Qing Hong Wu Pardoned!

March 8, 2010 at 2:35 PM

Qing Hong Wu, the individual spotlighted in my previous blog entry has been pardoned by Governor David Paterson of New York. It is hoped by Mr. Wu’s family and friends that the pardon will stop deportation proceedings against Mr. Wu, result in his release from immigration detention, and lead to his successful application for US citizenship. The fact that it took a governor’s pardon to prevent his inevitable deportation, despite Mr. Wu’s long ties and significant contributions to the US, is an important statement about the rigidity and arbitrariness of current immigration law.

Deportation Without Consideration

February 25, 2010 at 12:51 PM

By almost any measure, Qing Hong Wu is an American.  He has lived in the US since the age of five, completed all of his schooling here and obtained a university degree, through hard work rose in prominence to the position of Vice-President of a national IT company, and he is engaged to be married.  He also takes care of his mother, an elderly naturalized US citizen, but when Mr. Wu applied for US citizenship at the age of 29, he was detained and placed in deportation. 

The reason?  His juvenile record.  Mr. Wu made some mistakes in his youth, but he listened to his juvenile sentencing judge, now-retired Judge Corriero of New York, who told him that he was young and could turn his life around, and he did.  Mr. Wu not only served time for his childhood crimes, but also worked hard to secure a successful education and career.  As US law now stands, however, criminal deportation proceedings will ignore entirely the myriad ways that Mr. Wu has demonstrated rehabilitation, including his positive contribution to his community and employer, and instead the proceedings will focus entirely on his juvenile bad behavior. 

Recognizing the immense strides taken by Mr. Wu in the past fifteen years, Judge Corriero supports his fight to remain in the US and is seeking a governor’s pardon for Wu’s juvenile record, the only way to avoid his mandatory deportation.   Mr. Wu’s employer has submitted a letter of support, and the Organization of Chinese Americans is seeking to have Mr. Wu’s 1996 guilty plea vacated because his criminal lawyer failed to explain to the teenager that by pleading to criminal conduct, he was also agreeing to his mandatory deportation.

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