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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"I came to Texas to document the crisis of undocumented immigrants. Now I’m stuck."
Trapped on the Border
I came to Texas to document the crisis of undocumented immigrants. Now Im stuck.
By JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS
July 11, 2014
I write this from the city of McAllen, which sits in the Rio Grande Valley near the border, just across from the Mexican city of Reynosa. In the last 24 hours I realize that, for an undocumented immigrant like me, getting out of a border town in Texasby plane or by landwont be easy. It might, in fact, be impossible.
I flew into the valley Thursday morning to visit a shelter for unaccompanied Central American refugees and participate in a vigil in their honor. Outraged at the media coverage of this humanitarian crisis (these children are not illegal, as news organizations like CBS News and the New York Times call them), and frustrated by the political ping-pong centered on border security and increased enforcement, I also came here to share my own story of coming to the United States as an unaccompanied minor from the Philippines. I wanted to help change the narrative of the conversation and, with a camera crew, share stories from the shelter and its volunteers. The visit to the shelter was intense and sobering, watching small kids fight for their lives with nothing more than their spirits.
When my friend Mony Ruiz-Velasco, an immigration lawyer who used to work in the area, saw on my Facebook page that I was in McAllen, she texted me: I am so glad you are visiting the kids near the border. But how will you get through the checkpoint on your way back? A curious question, I thought, and one I dismissed. Ive visited the border before, in California. What checkpoint? What was she talking about?
Then Tania Chavez, an undocumented youth leader from the Minority Affairs Council, one of the organizers of the vigil, asked me the same question: How will you get out of here? Tania grew up in this border town. As the day wore on, as the reality of my predicament sunk in, Tania spelled it out for me: You might not get through airport security, where Customs and Border Protection (CPB) also checks for IDs, and you will definitely not get through the immigration checkpoints set up within 45 miles of this border town. At these checkpoints, you will be asked for documentation. (Even if you tell them youre a U.S. citizen, they will ask you follow-up questions if they dont believe you, Tania told me.)
I flew into the valley Thursday morning to visit a shelter for unaccompanied Central American refugees and participate in a vigil in their honor. Outraged at the media coverage of this humanitarian crisis (these children are not illegal, as news organizations like CBS News and the New York Times call them), and frustrated by the political ping-pong centered on border security and increased enforcement, I also came here to share my own story of coming to the United States as an unaccompanied minor from the Philippines. I wanted to help change the narrative of the conversation and, with a camera crew, share stories from the shelter and its volunteers. The visit to the shelter was intense and sobering, watching small kids fight for their lives with nothing more than their spirits.
When my friend Mony Ruiz-Velasco, an immigration lawyer who used to work in the area, saw on my Facebook page that I was in McAllen, she texted me: I am so glad you are visiting the kids near the border. But how will you get through the checkpoint on your way back? A curious question, I thought, and one I dismissed. Ive visited the border before, in California. What checkpoint? What was she talking about?
Then Tania Chavez, an undocumented youth leader from the Minority Affairs Council, one of the organizers of the vigil, asked me the same question: How will you get out of here? Tania grew up in this border town. As the day wore on, as the reality of my predicament sunk in, Tania spelled it out for me: You might not get through airport security, where Customs and Border Protection (CPB) also checks for IDs, and you will definitely not get through the immigration checkpoints set up within 45 miles of this border town. At these checkpoints, you will be asked for documentation. (Even if you tell them youre a U.S. citizen, they will ask you follow-up questions if they dont believe you, Tania told me.)
I do not have a single U.S. government-issued ID. Like most of our countrys 11 million undocumented immigrants, I do not have a drivers licensenot yet, at least. (Recently, California and Washington, D.C., passed laws granting licenses to their undocumented residents. Though New York City will start issuing municipal IDs to its undocumented population, the state of New York, where I currently live, does not issue drivers licenses.) Identification aside, since outing myself in the New York Times Magazine in June 2011, and writing a cover story for TIME a year later, Ive been the most privileged undocumented immigrant in the country. The visibility, frankly, has protected me. While hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been detained and deported in the past three years, I produced and directed a documentary film, Documented, which was shown in theaters and aired on CNN less than two weeks ago. I founded a media and culture campaign, Define American, to elevate how we talk about immigration and citizenship in a changing America. And Ive been traveling non-stop for three years, visiting more than 40 states.
full: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/texas-border-trapped-108826.html
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"I came to Texas to document the crisis of undocumented immigrants. Now I’m stuck." (Original Post)
alp227
Jul 2014
OP
daleanime
(17,796 posts)1. Kick....