Students Are Spared Deportation, More Vocal About Their Status

Last week, Marlen Moreno-Peralta, a Mexican immigrant living in Arizona with two American-born children, was granted a one-year deferment to her deportation order after activists petitioned on her behalf.

Before that, there was Eric Balderas, a 19-year-old Harvard student born in Mexico but raised in the U.S., who was arrested by immigration authorities on his way back to Boston from his home state of Texas. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials delayed his deportation indefinitely.

Moreno-Peralta and Balderas are among a growing trend of undocumented students in the U.S. being spared deportation, according to The New York Times. This is in contrast to the Obama administration’s hard line stance on the deportation of undocumented immigrations who have committed crimes while in the U.S. “In case after case where immigrant students were identified by federal agents as being in the country illegally, the students were released from detention and their deportations were suspended or canceled, lawyers and immigrant advocates said. Officials have even declined to deport students who openly declared their illegal status in public protests,” the articles states.

Although there has been no formal policy change, immigration officials say they have more pressing concerns than deporting law-abiding students who have grown up knowing the United States as their home.

While the DREAM Act, which, if passed, would provide 700,000 undocumented immigrant students a path to citizenship, is stalled in Congress, activist groups are working case by case to keep students here in the country. And they seem to be succeeding. Juan Escalante, a spokesman for the Dream is Coming, an organization that has waged petition campaigns and sit-ins to stop student deportations, tells The Times: “We have not had a single student whose case we handled who has been deported. Obviously, there is some sort of pattern there in the fact they are not deporting students.”

With the changing landscape and perception of immigration, some undocumented students, according to the article, believe it is now safe to be more open about their status.

“I don’t have to hide,” says Yahaira Carrillo, 25, a Mexico-born student at Rockhurst University who declared her status while at a sit-in in Sen. John McCain’s Office in May. “I don’t have to make excuses as to why I can’t take certain jobs or scholarships. What is the worst that can happen to me now? I’m already in deportation proceedings.”

As more and more undocumented students declare their status and share their stories, Americans will have a better understanding of the multitude of faces that make up an undocumented immigrant. When the majority of Americans realize that undocumented immigrants aren’t just drug smugglers, then a real immigration debate can come forth.

Kristi Eaton is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She graduated from Arizone State University in 2008.