Hispanic students win legal status

Undocumented students mobilize to win legal status
Miami Herald

WASHINGTON -- Immigration, an issue placed on the congressional backburner by attempts to revamp the nation's health care system, is percolating again as Republican lawmakers are pushing a measure that would require U.S. Census forms to include a question about the citizenship status of respondents.

An amendment by Sens. David Vitter, R-La, and Bob Bennett, R-Utah, to freeze Census Bureau funds if it doesn't add the citizenship question to more than 425 million forms before the once-a-decade count begins in April has divided Latino groups, as well as some opponents of comprehensive immigration legislation.

Vitter calls his amendment, which he hopes to attach to a Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, necessary to try to exclude illegal immigrants from the census count so their numbers won't impact on congressional apportionment or legislative redistricting, which is based on population.

With only her face and neck poking above the dais, a 13-year-old girl Wednesday talked about how the deportation of her bread-winning father to Guatemala tore asunder her family.

“I know our lives wouldn't have been like this had our dad not been deported,'' said Ashley Guerra, of Sweetwater, citing the loss of her parents' home. “They deported him because he didn't have his papers, but I don't think that's a good reason.''

Ashley's first-hand testimony about the effects of immigration policy on her family was delivered Wednesday at Miami-Dade County Hall as local leaders and immigrant advocates gathered to study a proposal that aims to articulate a single county position on federal immigration reform.

Is The Miami Herald guilt-ridden with white man's burden, soft on crime or just muddle headed? These are among the questions raised by some readers about what they see as The Herald's squeamishness in writing about, well, that's the issue. Are they illegal aliens? Undocumented workers? Or as some say in South Texas, just plain wetbacks.

The choice is critical. In the escalating battle over immigration, all sides agree on at least this: words are power. The labels that stick become the prism through which the nation views the issue. This helps determine which side wins. So it is no mistake that a bill offering a path to citizenship for thousands of illegal-immigrant students is titled the "Dream Act" by pro-immigrant forces. Who would deny hopes and the American Dream to youths?

The opponents know verbal tricks of their own. They have managed to turn "amnesty" into a dirty word, given the failure to halt illegal immigration after the last two amnesties. "Illegal alien shamnesty, " says conservative columnist

How can even the most hardened editor not go warm and fuzzy over the Gomez brothers?

The two boys were detained to be deported to their native Colombia when student friends intervened to save them, launching an online campaign, raising money and going to Congress. They won the family's release, at least for the moment. The Gomez boys, 18 and 19, were popular students, and the younger Juan was a star. He had near-perfect grades and has just entered the honor's program at Miami Dade College.