Journalist Jose Vargas, symbol of immigration debate, detained at airport

[sinkingfeeling]

Source: CNN.com

CNN) -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas suspected he wouldn't get out.

His fear came to fruition Tuesday morning when he was detained at a Texas airport while trying to pass through security en route to Los Angeles, said Ryan Eller, campaign director for Define American, a group Vargas founded in 2011.

In Politico last week, Vargas wrote a piece headlined "Trapped on the Border." The story documents how he went to McAllen to visit a shelter where undocumented immigrant children were being held. He also wanted to share his "story of coming to the United States as an unaccompanied minor from the Philippines," he wrote for Politico.

Once in McAllen, he spoke to Chavez, who expressed concern that the journalist might not make it through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoints about 45 minutes outside McAllen.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/15/justice/texas-jose-vargas-detained/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[alp227]

1. Also reported by the SF Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Pulitzer-winning-reporter-detained-at-border-5622963.php

[Shrike47]

2. It seems pretty clear he invited detention. I wonder why?

[rocktivity]

3. But Vargas says he didn't come to the US as an unaccompanied minor

Last edited Tue Jul 15, 2014, 03:44 PM - Edit history (1)

...At age 12, Vargas came to the United States from the Philippines in 1993 with a man he'd never met, but whom his aunt and a family friend introduced as his uncle, Vargas wrote in a 2011 column for The New York Times Magazine.

...Once in the States, he lived with his grandfather, a security guard, and grandmother, a food server. Both were naturalized American citizens who had been supporting Vargas and his mother since Vargas was 3. He'd later learn that his grandfather had paid $4,500 for this purported uncle -- who was a coyote, or people smuggler -- to bring Vargas to the United States under a fake passport and name...

...(Vargas) applied for a driver's license and was told his green card was bogus...(H)e...asked his grandfather..."I saw the shame on his face as he told me he purchased the card, along with other fake documents, for me..." Vargas wrote.

...Since outing himself as an undocumented immigrant three years ago, he says he has traveled extensively, visiting 40 states..."Because I don't have any ID besides my Filipino passport, it's going to be hard for me to actually get out of here at some point when I decide to get out of here in the next couple of days," he said.

Well, it he suspected it was at least a possibility, maybe he shouldn't have tried to fly out. Is his Filipino passport authentic and valid? And if his grandparents were in the U.S. legally, why couldn't they have sponsored him in some way?

From an ally's Twitter page:




rocktivity

[southmost]

4. undocumented is a key word

not sure if this applies to Vargas; poverty and low to no documentation are common in third world countries

how can you get 'legal' migrant status without accepted documents?

for example, my (american citizen) brother's wife was born from a family too poor to buy a birth certificate when she was born..... ( a freaking birth certificate )

she may never be able to become a 'legal' resident ...