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Struggles of undocumented students in higher education
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A mother sees her children off to school at the school bus stop; however, they would never see each other again. The mother’s trip to the immigration check-in has caused a dramatic change in both her’s and her family’s lives. A story such as this, one where a parent is taken away and deported, is far too common in the U.S.A. An unsympathetic system of deportation has torn many families apart and has thrown away all the effort that immigrants have put into coming to America. Throughout the novel Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario, a young boy named Enrique struggles to immigrate to the U.S. and faces many obstacles that infringe on his right to immigrate. The right to immigrate is threatened both in the U.S. and around the world by corrupt dysfunctional …show more content…
For instance, Helen O’ Neill, author of “Parents Deported, What happens to U.S.-born kids?”, explains who also falls victim to unreasonable deportation here: “It 's a question thousands of other families are wrestling with as a record number of deportations means record numbers of American children being left without a parent”. Hence, when parents are deported, children often face an uncertain future of foster care, home relocation, and confusion. In addition to the above point, O’ Neill points out the extent to how many parents and families are affected in the following fact: “Nearly 45,000 such parents were removed in the first six months of this year, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)”. According to the statistic, the deportation of parents is not an uncommon occurrence; tens of thousands of families are affected each year. Think of how many children are also uprooted from their homes as a result of …show more content…
Again O’ Neil brings to light the struggles faced by immigrants in another article: “Young Illegal Immigrants Coming Out of the Shadows”. In her article, she recognizes the voices of those who critique the way the governments handles immigrants in this excerpt: “Even critics who are sympathetic to their [immigrants] cause say the federal government has failed to secure the U.S. borders and that it 's too costly to provide schooling, hospital care and other public services to non-citizens”. In spite that providing for non-citizens can be difficult to accommodate, that does not mean they should be completely turned away from government aid. O’ Neill states the following about the children of immigrants who manage to complete an education: “But only a federal law can give undocumented youth green cards, so even those who manage to graduate find themselves stuck: qualified lawyers, engineers and teachers who can only work menial jobs, in the shadows, like their undocumented parents”. After trying to make a life for themselves through education, undocumented youth still struggle to achieve what could come easily to a citizen even though they put the same, if not more effort, into getting where they are
Life is like a game of blackjack where we unknowingly are dealt good or bad cards. This unpredictability makes it difficult to gamble decisions. Unfortunately many factors can lead to the bad card where in both the game and life, people are trying to prevent us from achieving the goal. There are two choices to change the outcome however, we may either give up (fold) or we may take a chance (call). The beauty of taking the risk is that if lucky, life gives you that much-needed card. When dealt that winning card, a person is immediately uplifted. That one good hand drives a person to outweigh the pros from the cons and continue to strive for the winning pot or in this case, the goal in life. Enrique in Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” is dealt both the good and bad cards in life, as he undergoes a battle of being pushed internally to continue while also being pulled externally to quit, thus leading him to unearth himself as a worthy human being while on the journey to the U.S; sadly however, his arrival in the U.S refutes what he clearly envisioned for himself.
For immigrants, reuniting with parents who left them is a huge problem in the U.S. Children who reunite with their parents after many years have a lot of problems with the parents. The parents and children tend to argue, the children have buried anger, and both have an idealized concept of each other. According to Los Angeles’s Newcomer School, a school for newly arrived immigrants which is referenced in Enrique’s Journey, a bit more than half of want to talk to the counselor about their problems. The main problem Murillo, the school’s counselor, says is mostly family problems. Murillo says that many parent-child meetings are all very similar and identical to each other. Some of the similarities are that idealized notions of each other disappear, children felt bitter before going to the U.S., and that many children have buried rage. Mothers say that the separations between them and child was worth it because of the money earned and the advantages in America. However, many children said that they would rather have less money and food if it meant their mothers would stay with them.
Enrique decides to set out on a journey to reunite with his mother in the US. It takes eight attempts over four months to finally reach her. The first seven times he is robbed, beaten, and deported again and again, yet never gives up. Like most migrants, much of Enrique's journey is atop a freight train, but there are many dangers between Honduras and the US. If migrants aren’t killed by the trains themselves, they must worry about the gangsters, bandits, and robbers beating, robbing, raping, and even killing migrants. Just as dangerous are the corrupt police called la migra that do whatever they want to immigrants before deporting them. On the bright side Enrique meets a variety of people on his journey, many attempting the same voyage he is. They share their stories and advice about where to go and where to avoid.
"I need to find my mom" say's one out of the thousand child immigrants that cross the border into America each year. Border Patrol agents could arrest as many as 90,000 children trying to illegally cross the Mexican border alone in the year 2014 more than three times the number of children apprehended in 2013, according to a draft internal Homeland Security memorandum reviewed by The Associated Press. These children are escaping the dangers and poverty in their homelands and running for safety not only to the United States, but also to neighboring nations including Panama, Belize, and Costa Rica. The Novel Enrique's journey illustrate the struggles of living in central america, and the dangerous of the journey to crossing the border in to America for freedom, and wealth.
In ‘’My undocumented life” like many others, Jose Antonio Vargas is an undocumented immigrant here in the U.S. He arrived on this country when he was twelve due to many economic crisis, after he arrived in Mountain View, Calif. He entered sixth grade starting the new life that was waiting for him living with his grandparents. Time had passed by, Jose was now sixteen, so he decided to go get his driver’s permit at DMV office when he handed the clerk his green card as proof of U.S residency she examined it saying “This is fake”.Life hasn’t been easiest since he has to lie and act like someone else in order to not get deported, he doesn’t have all the rights as a legal American citizen even though he works as hard as one.
While working with the youth, he shared his story of how he came to the U.S. The youth, a 14 year-old a native of Honduras, reported that his father was already living in the U.S. and paid someone in Honduras to, “get him here”. The youth reported that it took him a month to get to the U.S. which included several days of being on a train and another several days of walking. The youth reported that he was eventually caught crossing the border in Texas and was sent to a dentition center in Florida.
... person what is going to happen with the family, being deported changes not just the life of the person being detained but the lives of the family as well. “The participants shared their thoughts and beliefs regarding the immigrants they work with, and emphasized the devastating consequences of deportation. The most compelling description of thedeportation experience was offered by the Community Leader:“el sueñoAmericano se convierte en una pesadilla” [the American dream becomes a nightmare]. He explained that when a member of the family is deported [“every aspect of life is affected”].”(Lopez, Anna, Boie, Loana p.44). The way that deportation and immigration harms the family is really unfortunate and it is not something that people want to go through because when a member of a family is lost it sends that family into a endless spiral of thoughts, fears and anxiety.
A large part of the undocumented population was formed by Asian immigrants. Many of them have been deported by Obama Administration. Moreover, many of these are refugees who fled to the U.S. after the wars in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, had entered the United States as infants and toddlers. They have little or no family connection. Thousands of Cambodians and Vietnamese have faced the prospect of deportation (Hing 48). Some of the organizations, such as Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership appealed to Barack Obama administration to halt further deportations and has staged protests to raise awareness and engender action against deportation (Hing 49). However, according to Rep. Judy Chu, chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, undocumented young people from Asian and Pacific Island nations make up only 2.6 percent of recipients of deportation relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, even though they account for about 8 percent of those eligible (Foley 56). Asian Americans do not get the same level of attention as Latino American because of the myth of “model minority”. The public can only see the good side of Asian immigrants in the U.S. Many of the stories about undocumented Asian immigrants are unknown. Jose Antonio Vargas who came to America in his early age. He is a successful journalist and activist. But now he is facing the risk of being
Imagine being 10 years old and waking up to find out your mother has been arrested, and you are now responsible for everything your mother did. This is just one example of what Heidi Portugal faced at as a child in “The Children of Unauthorized Immigrants” by Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Carola Suarez-Orozco. Many children of unauthorized immigrants face challenges like Heidi, the ways they routinely face insecurity and deprivation are housing instability, food insecurity and education libations.
The book Enrique’s Journey is about a teenager from Honduras who wants to immigrate to the United States of America to reunite with his mother. His mother Lourdes left him with family members when he was five years old to immigrate to America and find work to support her children. This is a heart wrenching and eye-opening story about how hard immigration is and how important family is.
Jose Antonio Vargas’s article on My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant is a writing about his childhood journey from the Philippines to the United States as an Undocumented Immigrant. Vargas writes this article to emphasize the topic of immigrant and undocumented immigrant in the United States. He uses all three appeals: pathos, ethos, and logic in his writing, in specific, he mostly uses pathos throughout of his entire article with a purpose for the reader to sympathize and to feel compassion for him. The use of these appeals attract many readers, they can feel and understand his purpose is to ask for others to join and support other people who undocumented immigrant like himself. In addition, it gives other undocumented immigrant people courage
My heart beeted louder and faster the further away we got from Santa Maria. Silence was the only noise that came. Besides the van's engine and graveling ground. In the mirror I saw Roberto. A blank expression. I was hoping to seek comfort from, but instead all little hope I had left just evaporated. Trying to keep my eyes from leaking, not letting the immigration officer see me cry i face toward the window. Fields and fields full of illegal people picking and working. I will never see papa, mama, torito, trampita, ruben and rorra again.
In an article by David Haugen and Susan Musser, published in 2011, it is stated that, “Obama detailed his vision of how the laws of the United States must operate to fix the broken system. He advocates a "path toward citizenship" for those noncriminal aliens living and working in the country.” Former President, Barrack Obama, defends that, although undocumented immigration is illegal and should be punishable, if the immigrant is working and playing a positive role in the economy, they should be given the feasibility of obtaining American citizenship. During his eight years of serving in office, Obama gained the support of many immigrants and worked toward making America a land of opportunity. Many will lean toward the perspective of Obama because a big population of the U.S. is made up of immigrants, mainly from the bordering country of Mexico. In the same article by David Haugen and Susan Musser, one of the most notable motives for immigration is discussed. The article mentions, “Mexican and Central American immigrants come to the United States because it offers the hope of economic opportunity and, perhaps, a chance to reunite with family members that have already established themselves in the country.” The act of moving to the United States, with or without documentation papers, can sometimes be the only way that a family can remain a union. The deportation of immigrants is a leading cause of broken
Deportations has has been in mind to our country but I will make our way of peace with our families a disaster. Most families which are being deported till this moment are mexican which really impacts their families in many ways. The author insist, “ Children are suffering house instability, emotional harm, and financial stress which are led to decline in school performance.”(Ewing, 2012) This shows that deportation have not only affected immigrants but children which are citizens and are trying to be someone in life but are being held behind by
“From the moment I decided to leave, I knew all the risks involved, including dying on the journey” (Renaud). Brian, one of the youth migrants interviewed, does not live in a society like the United States, but the differences between him, other migrants and the rest of the United States population are few. American legislation has created barriers to attempt to stop illegal immigration, but sparked more problems and created a greater risk for many immigrants when attempting and reaching the states. The DACA under the Obama administration attempted to start the process of a solution to America’s immigration process, but more needs to be done about people, especially the migrant youth currently in the United States.. Through past legislation such as the Immigration Act of 1965, American Ideals, and the DACA, migrant youth should be given an end goal and should be given the ability to remain in the United States to work.