Thread: JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS is ILLEGAL and Trapped on the Border - Politico ‎

Trapped on the Border
July 11, 2014

I came to Texas to document the crisis of undocumented immigrants. Now I’m stuck.


By JOSE ANTON

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 Texas—by plane or by land—won’t 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. I’ve 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 you’re a U.S. citizen, they will ask you follow-up questions if they don’t believe you,” Tania told me.)

Neither Tania nor I qualify for deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA), a directive from the Obama administration that Republican leaders like Texas Gov. Rick Perry have inaccurately and irresponsibly blamed for the surge of unaccompanied youth crossing the border.

President Obama announced DACA on June 15, 2012. Young children from Central America have been crossing for years, as Perry well knows. In fact, Perry’s letter to President Obama, supposedly warning him of the deluge, was dated May 4, 2012.

I do not have a single U.S. government-issued ID. Like most of our country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, I do not have a driver’s license—not 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 driver’s 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, I’ve 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 I’ve been traveling non-stop for three years, visiting more than 40 states.

Of course, I can only travel within the United States and, for identification, when I fly I use a valid passport that was issued by my native country, the Philippines. But each flight is a gamble. My passport lacks a visa. If TSA agents discover this, they can contact CBP, which, in turn, can detain me. But so far, I haven’t had any problems, either because I look the way I do (“You’re not brown and you don’t look like a Jose Antonio Vargas,” an immigration advocate once told me), or talk the way I do—or because, as a security agent at John F. Kennedy International Airport who recognized me said without a hint of irony, “You seem so American.”

I might not be so lucky here in the valley. I am not sure if my passport will be enough to let me fly out of McAllen-Miller International Airport, and I am not sure if my visibility will continue to protect me—not here, not at the border.

“So you’re in the same boat as I am,” Tania told me last night during a vigil across the street from the shelter. The vigil was organized by immigrant youth from the valley and held in honor of the refugee children.


Tania was born in Mexico, and she and her family moved 45 minutes north to the United States when she was 14. For years, she had a tourist visa that allowed her to travel back and forth between the two countries. But the visa expired. She can’t get other visas, and though she grew up in the United States and considers Texas to be her home, she’s undocumented. Even though she graduated from University of Texas-Pan American and has two master’s degrees, she is trapped, literally and figuratively, her life in limbo, her dreams on hold. She’s 28.

Like many undocumented Mexicans who live near the Texas-Mexico border, she can’t return from Mexico if she goes, and she can’t travel outside of a 45-mile radius in her home in Texas.

“When I saw you arrive [this morning], I was like, ‘He’s here, this is real,’” Tania told me.

“You didn’t think I was going to show up?” I asked.

“It all happened so fast, organizing this vigil,” Tania replied.

I told her I didn’t think twice about visiting the Texas border. But I didn’t know what I was getting myself into and knew nothing about life as undocumented in a border town in Texas, where checkpoints and border patrol agents are parts of everyday life. I’ve been flying everywhere across the country—what would make this trip different?

As Tania and I sat together in a circle holding unlit candles, a crowd of about 30 people—mostly undocumented youth, a few citizen allies—started chanting something in Spanish, a language I don’t speak. Her head on my shoulder, with tears in our eyes, she translated the chant for me:

“No me digas illegal”/Don’t call me illegal
“Porque eso no lo soy”/Because I am not
“llegal son sus leyes”/Illegal are your laws
“Y por eso no me voy”/And that’s why I’m not leaving

Jose Antonio Vargas, director of “Documented,” is the founder of DefineAmerican.com.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...#ixzz37IYnHnim

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f12/pulitzer-pr...-alien-230352/

6/22/2011

We will see if he is immune.

Wow, even the chant they recite at vigils acknowledges disrespect for American law. Deporting time!

Originally Posted by Newmexican

We will see if he is immune.

Any I.C.E. Agent or Border Patrol Agent who captures him and causes him to be deported should get a promotion.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Any I.C.E. Agent or Border Patrol Agent who captures him and causes him to be deported should get a promotion.

Actually, I don't think they should be rewarded for doing the job we pay them to do.

Originally Posted by MW

Actually, I don't think they should be rewarded for doing the job we pay them to do.

Don't be a killjoy. Getting rid of him at this stag of the game would be going above and beyond the call of duty. He's been running around pushing his luck and someone needs to put an end to it.

ICE has the chance to catch Jose Antonio Vargas RIGHT NOW

POSTED AT 9:31 AM ON JULY 13, 2014 BY JAZZ SHAW

It’s somewhat ironic that CNN is, today, touting the premier of their new show The Hunt (with John Walsh) tonight at the same time as they arestill featuring the documentary Documented by Jose Antonio Vargas. The irony – since they seem oblivious to it – is that the former is a show dedicated to catching criminals who are on the loose, while the latter is produced by one of the people we should ostensibly be looking for. Vargas is in the country illegally, and yet somehow appears on multiple television programs, produces films and seems to earn a fine living writing for multiple political outlets.

The office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would, one might assume, have a particular interest in this case. After all, they actuallyhad their hands on Vargas back in 2012 but chose to let him go. I will commit the sin of quoting myself here, because at the time I noted the following:

Mr. Vargas appears to be in the country illegally by his own admission on multiple occasions. (I can find no source stating otherwise or any indication that he’s gotten into any sort of DREAMER documentation or what have you, but stand ready to edit this if that’s not true.) With that in mind, it does leave one with what seems a pertinent observation. Okay… we get that you can’t find and deport 20 million people. But it seems like you could have found this guy without a lot of extra resources, eh?

Well, ICE… now is your moment of golden opportunity. Vargas has put virtual pen to paper again this weekend to bemoan the fact that he is currently “trapped” on the Texas border and is afraid that he might not be able to get out of the area because he still lacks any documents granting him the right to be in this country legally. He writes this missive from McAllen, Texas.

In the last 24 hours I realize that, for an undocumented immigrant like me, getting out of a border town in Texas—by plane or by land—won’t be easy. It might, in fact, be impossible…
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 you’re a U.S. citizen, they will ask you follow-up questions if they don’t believe you,” Tania told me.)

Vargas then goes on to definitively confess – or more correctly, brag – about his current illegal status.

I do not have a single U.S. government-issued ID. Like most of our country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, I do not have a driver’s license—not yet, at least… Identification aside, since outing myself in the New York Times Magazine in June 2011, and writing a cover story for TIME a year later, I’ve 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.

Let’s identify why this is an important arrest for you ICE guys and gals to to make. It’s true that the White House administration has added to our current border crisis by sending mixed messages to those who would enter the country illegally. That goes without saying. But coming in a close second is this guy. He’s out there on an almost daily basis, showing up on a network which is broadcast to every nation in the world. And the message he’s sending is clear.

“Look at me! I’m here illegally. I don’t have any documents. And I’m on the TeeVee! I produce films. I get paid to write columns in nationally syndicated sources. And nobody can lay a finger on me!”

Is that the message you want out there? Is this not adding to the “confusion” among Central American residents thinking of sneaking over the border? Obviously not. So here’s what you need to be doing:
- First, you need to find and arrest this guy.
- Next he needs to be put in a detention center.
- Expedite his case to the front of the line and give him a speedy hearing before a judge where it will be revealed that he has no documents allowing him to be here.
- Put him on a plane and send him back to the Philippines where he belongs.
- Hold a major press conference letting everyone in the world know that you’ve done this and repeating that you will not tolerate those who knowingly and intentionally violate our laws.
- Let Mr. Vargas go to the back of the line and apply for citizenship in the normal fashion. Given the usual wait times, we should see him again in ten to fifteen years.

So what say you get on the stick here. Are you having trouble finding him? Let me help you out. Here’s a picture.


That’s him! That’s the guy! He’s in McAllen, Texas.
(Here’s a Google map in case you’re lost.)
He’s at an immigrant shelter down by the border. And the guy isn’t just going to blend in with all the other border jumpers from Mexico and Central America.
He’s from the Philippines, so he should stand out like a sore thumb.
And he’s traveling with a film crew!
How hard can it be to locate him?
This is your moment, ICE. Go do your jobs.

Update: (Jazz) Doug Mataconis has read my logic and found it wanting.

While those are all valid arguments, it just doesn’t strike me that Vargas is someone who ought to be a target for an immigration enforcement system that is already overburdened, and likely to become more so thanks to the ongoing border crisis. Like many people who are in a similar position, Vargas was brought to this country as a child and thus had no say in whether or not he wanted to become an illegal immigrant to the United States. Since graduating High School, he’s gotten an education, been gainfully employed, won a prestigious journalism award, and had produced work that has employed many other people. He’s apparently never been on public assistance and, outside of things related to his immigration status, he has never committed a serious crime, and most certainly has never committed a violent crime. He has also become an important part of the public debate on a very important issue. Regardless of whether or not he has a piece of paper saying he is in the country legally, is this really someone that we ought to be prioritizing as a candidate for deportation? I find it hard to say that the answer to this question is yes. In fact, I’d argue that Vargas is precisely the kind of illegal immigrant that we ought to want to grant legal status to so that he can more fully participate in the economy and the public life of his adopted country. Rather than being a walking advertisement for deportation, he strikes me as more of a walking advertisement for why comprehensive immigration reform is necessary. There are many people in Vargas’s position, he just happens to be the most prominent, public example.

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/07/1...gas-right-now/

The Philippines may have a lot of poor but it also has a LOT of opportunity for Filipino's, especially those with a western education who can get together a bit of money. Its not some back water ultra poor country. Those who are poor are that way also through personal choice and lack of education. I lived in the Philippines for 6 years and have seen poor people go from poor to middle class and up. But it takes a shrewd nature and not a bemoaning nature. There is NO reason anyone from the Philippines who is an illegal alien should not be returned home.

I remember a year back maybe when a gay Filipino was allowed to stay in the US claiming how the Philippines hates gays so much and no chance of him getting a decent job because he was gay. There was a very loud outcry in the Philippines from the gay community in the Philippines to send him back and let them deal with him. Gays are widely accepted across the Philippines and odd as it sounds have an easier time getting work even good careers. Out of all my travels I have never seen a country more accepting of gays then the Philippines and that goes for the US and all other western countries I have traveled to also. Its near impossible to find someone who doesn't have at least 1 gay friend in the Philippines.

http://www.alipac.us/f12/immigration...-texas-307264/

7/15/2014