Thread: Activist fighting for migrants with children born in U.S.

Nov. 3, 2007, 11:51PM
Activist fighting for migrants with children born in U.S.
She is battling odds to get her day in Supreme Court
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
Associated Press
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MIAMI — Experts say Nora Sandigo doesn't have a prayer in her bid to get the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children.

Sandigo just nods — she's heard it all before.

Naysayers scoffed when the immigration activist and former supporter of Nicaragua Contra rebels worked to stop the deportation of thousands of Central American immigrants who'd fled their region's civil wars in the 1980s. But her work prompted Congress to pass a law protecting them in 1997.

Experts said the same thing before she helped thousands more Central Americans win temporary protection after natural disasters struck several years later.

"We have to try. The worst battle is the one not waged," said Sandigo, a single mother of two who runs the nonprofit immigrant advocacy group American Fraternity and owns two small businesses.

Illegal immigrants in Florida, New York, California and Illinois have asked Sandigo to become the legal guardian of their 600 children, so she could help the children if the parents are deported.

Going to the top
About 100 children have been entered into her lawsuit seeking to allow the parents to stay in the U.S. until Congress passes an immigration bill that would give them legal status or until the Department of Homeland Security provides them another avenue to remain. The lawsuit eventually could cover an estimated 4 million children.

Children born in the U.S. are automatically citizens, even if their parents are illegal immigrants. If their parents are deported, they are allowed to stay, but most have to return with their parents to a country and culture they've never known.

Sandigo's lawsuit has been filed directly with the Supreme Court because federal law has limited lower courts' abilities to hear deportation cases.

It is a long shot. The Supreme Court rarely takes cases that have not moved through the lower courts.

However, she said the lawsuit is the best option because the U.S. Senate failed last month to revive a bill to allow some illegal immigrant students to seek U.S. residency — likely dooming any immigration bills this year.

Sandigo, 42, fled Nicaragua as a teen, leaving her own parents behind, after the socialist Sandinista government confiscated her family's farm. During the 1980s, she provided the U.S.-backed Contra insurgents with clothes and "everything that was needed" and later spirited her 16-year-old brother out of the country before he could be drafted. She became a U.S. citizen in the early 1990s.

Her support of free trade agreements with Latin America puts her at odds with many immigrant advocates who fear such deals won't protect worker rights and small businesses. Sandigo says free trade and immigration go together.

"I don't want people to say we are just trying to bring more immigrants to the U.S. I want people to be able to stay in their countries and find work," she said.

'It will become a magnet'
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict limits on immigration, said her lawsuit will only encourage more people to come.

"Family relationships and employment are what bring people here," he said. "On the other hand, if having a U.S.-born child is a guaranteed get-out-of-jail-free card, then it will become a magnet."

Sandigo said she's not asking for open borders and favors more border security. She simply believes immigrants who've worked for years in the U.S. shouldn't be separated from their children or forced to uproot them.

Among the children in her lawsuit is 15-year-old Teresa Flores of Yakima, Wash.

Teresa and her four siblings awoke in April 2006 to see her mother hauled off by immigration agents. She dropped out of school to take care of her younger brother before returning to the Mexican town of La Huerta, Jalisco, where her mother now works as a waitress. That job does not pay Teresa's mother enough to provide the basics for her children, so Teresa returned to the U.S. to live with another family and catch up in school.

"As a citizen, I want to be heard," Teresa said.

Even if the Supreme Court accepts Sandigo's case, the odds against her are great, says University of Virginia law professor David Martin, who served as Immigration and Naturalization Services general counsel under President Clinton.

Sandigo is adamant.

"By sending parents back, what are you creating here? You're creating children who are going to be resentful, angry," she said. "You're creating enemies within the country."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hea ... 70217.html

She has not realized that the children ARE NOT anchors as they hope for.
This is the reason the 14th amendment must be repealed or resciended. This nightmare has to be stopped.

Deterrent: A punishment intended as a warning to others.

Works for me.

Sandigo, 42, fled Nicaragua as a teen, leaving her own parents behind...

Worked for her.

Activist fighting for migrants with children born in U.S.

It is probably this expectation that is causing a population boom among illegal immigrants. It needs to be put to rest.

I am hopeful that the Nov 6th election will be the first page of a long message that will be sent to our elected officials at every level.

With the tenacious grip this "immigrant wave" has within US society we need every victory we can get. We are already doing so much abroad to help these folks---one of my supervisors (in a construction trade) just left on a church-sponsored volunteer trip to Mexico, I presume to build something for them. Plus they have internet access available in most locations now, usually by an internet cafe and if not, with the middle class anyway, their own connection.

With falling US dollar values it is getting more difficult for Americans to go abroad, and mission agencies are faced with higher prices for what they must purchase in other countries. This is just another burden on the middle class of America--and they will be faced with heated competition for jobs when the economy finally slows.