Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    JackSmith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    458

    Denver "feel good " story and ILLEGAL immigrant!

    In today's Rocky Mountain news Sports section we have a story about a 26 year old who arrived in Colorado from Mexico at age 17. The article says "she applied for her residency when she arrived..." which means what? ILLEGAL immigrant! Adams State U. in Colorado gave her a scholarship to run track and field. "We deny no one..." said the track coach.

    Her dream is to be a US citizen and run for the US although she had planned to return to Mexico. Reading the article, sounds like her "15 brothers and sisters" may be here too!

    The company that runs both the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News is now so bleedingly hearted liberal it makes me vomit! Another feel good story! I will email the writerr and tell hm what a jerk he is and of course they will not respond!


    If you buy either of these two papers pleaase cancel your subscription!
    I read it at the library only!

  2. #2
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    55,883
    When she applied for her residency, then ICE and INS before them knew they had an illegal arrival on their hands, so may I ask why was she not picked up and deported?

    Funding to Adams State University should be pulled!! This is a "state" university that does not have the right to "deny no one". What a farce statement!! They deny Americans every year.

    Someone snuck that girl into the United States to run track at this college.

    There heads to roll on this story.

    See what more you can find out. When they let that "caucasion" in without following federal civil rights law, then there is a good possibility that Adams State University violated US Civil Rights AND US Immigration Law.

    Grrrrrrrowl!!

    American Kids are getting cheated like this every single year.

    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  3. #3
    tms
    tms is offline

    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Tancredo District!!
    Posts
    631


    I applied at several state schools in COLORADO and got denied and yet illegals can get in and even get a scholarship. Here I am without a degree! I am a US born citizen, why isn't somone writing a story about me and my life.....I AM SO MAD, and the other day on the news, and in here they get home loans, car loans, houses, I am being denied a housing loan this is not fair, PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I only read Rocky MTN news or Post on the net

    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/c ... 12,00.html

    Here is the story:

    Step-by-step pursuit of her American dream
    Citizenship is just one of Gomez's goals

    By Jody Berger, Rocky Mountain News
    July 16, 2005

    ALAMOSA - Zoila Gomez practically bounces down the road. Her shiny black hair swings right and left, her gold hoop earrings sparkle in the sun, and her relentless grin suggests a woman who can't believe her luck.

    But the truth is, luck had little to do with Gomez's good life.

    As Gomez runs mile after mile - as many as 90 in an average week - through the sun-baked streets of Alamosa, she can see all the things she has earned.

    Jogging by Adams State College, Gomez can look in the classrooms where she earned her sociology degree. She can peek into the athletic department and spot a wall of national and conference championship plaques, eight of which she helped to win. Or she can look in on Richardson Hall and know the place is clean because she mopped, swept and emptied the trash.

    Born in Charcas, Mexico, Gomez is the 15th of 16 children in her family. And, as if that weren't enough, she collected dozens of surrogate family members as she moved from Mexico to California to Colorado.

    You can't say her name without someone saying, "She's like a sister to me," or, "She's like my daughter."

    The endless supply of support is wonderful, maybe even critical, in allowing Gomez to become an elite runner. But when a race begins, the assignment is solitary.

    "I always understood that whatever I was going to do, I was going to do for me," Gomez said.

    Ask her what that means now, and the answer is clear. Gomez's dream is an American one. The 26-year-old runner wants to become a U.S. citizen and run for this country - one day, she hopes, as an Olympian.

    Plan A

    Gomez grew up knowing that she would take care of herself on some levels. With seven girls and nine boys in the family, everyone did their own thing and it was hard to keep track of who was where and doing what.

    Ask Gomez what the age range is and she hesitates. "Forty-six to 21, I think, but I don't know," she said. "There's so many, I'm just guessing."

    Gomez is close to her mom, who remains in Charcas, and she still misses her father, who died when she was 6. Gomez sees her youngest sister, Alicia, most of all, since the 21-year-old is her roommate in Alamosa.

    As a teenager, Gomez wanted to escape the crowded house in the crowded Mexican town. She wanted to be the first in her family to attend college and she wanted to study broadcast journalism.

    Gomez applied to the university in San Luis Potosi, two hours from home, only to have her application rejected.

    Undeterred, a 16-year-old Gomez went to the school and tracked down the president. "Please," she begged, "give me a chance."

    He told her to apply again the next year.

    Gomez planned to do just that but, in the meantime, she would move to Los Angeles, live with a brother and learn English.

    It was there, in sunny Southern California, that Plan A was put on hold.

    Plan B

    Gomez, already a high school graduate in Mexico, enrolled in Costa Mesa High School primarily to work on her English. The school, though, required her to take physical education. When the gym teacher promised an "A" to any student who ran in a 5-kilometer race, Gomez reluctantly lined up at the start.

    Then she won her age group.

    With no training and no experience, Gomez was remarkably swift. The teacher encouraged her to join the track team. Gomez was not interested until the teacher explained that she would earn another PE course credit.

    Soon, Gomez grew to like having teammates and competing. After running track in the spring, she joined the cross country team in the fall and, pretty quickly, college coaches noticed the slender runner with the bouncing ponytail.

    "She wasn't the best runner (at her high school), but she always had a smile," said Dave Fier, head coach at Orange Coast Junior College in Costa Mesa, Calif., "If athletes have the right attitude, they'll progress."

    Gomez decided to run for Fier, mostly because she liked the computer science program at his school.

    Before the end of the first season, she was the top woman on the team.

    "You tell her something and she'll show up," Fier said. " 'You want me to do that? OK,' " he added, imitating the runner he now thinks of as a daughter.

    Before Gomez even had completed one year at Orange Coast, Fier thought it wouldn't be long before she needed tougher competition, and he knew she wanted a four-year degree. Fier had heard of Adams State and the school's 32 (now 33) national titles in track and field and cross country.

    Gomez had only started running two years earlier, but Fier took her to the prestigious Mount Sac Relays in Walnut, Calif., and encouraged her to approach Adams State head coach Damon Martin.

    "I'd like to come to your school," Gomez said. "What's it going to take?"

    Welcome to Colorado

    Adams State, which sits comfortably between the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountain ranges, is a liberal arts college with 2,500 students. At any given time, 100 to 110 of them run for the track and cross country teams.

    "We're not a program that turns anyone away," Martin said.

    Because Adams State is an NCAA Division II school, Martin can't offer everyone a scholarship, so some student-athletes pay their own way and others share scholarships. Gomez started with a partial scholarship but soon earned a full ride.

    "A lot of kids, if you say, 'I want you to run this far and this fast and I want you to go to sleep at this time and eat at this time,' " Martin started, then reconsidered. "Well, a lot of 18-year-olds want to go to the parties and they want to stay up late and they're not necessarily going to do what you ask.

    "Zoila has done whatever we've asked her to do."

    Gomez took the same attitude into her classes and her work-study job in the maintenance department.

    "I kind of adopted her," said Mildred Mondragon, Gomez's supervisor. "One time she had to run, like, 20 miles, so I'd take water to her out there.

    "I'd get more tired just watching her run," Mondragon said.

    Gomez, though, never seemed to fade. As her mileage increased, her times dropped to the point where she could run 5 kilometers in 15 minutes, 57 seconds, or 10 in 32:47. (The fastest American woman, Deena Kastor, formerly of Alamosa, clocks in at 14:51 and 30:50.)

    Welcome to the pros

    Gomez graduated in December 2004 with a list of awards on her résumé. And Gomez, an 11-time All-American and six-time Division II national champion, was named the Division II Athlete of the Year. Martin and Mondragon flew with her to New York to accept that one.

    Although the long-ago plan was to return to Mexico, Gomez remains in Alamosa, where she continues to train and to plot her professional career.

    She already has had some success - she won the USA Trail championships in Vail and competed for Mexico in the Bolder Boulder elite team race. She finished 15th, in 35:14, at the Peach- tree Road Race 10K on July 4 in Atlanta and is eyeing a marathon in the fall.

    Ideally, Gomez would like to compete in the U.S. Championships and to run for U.S. national teams. To do that, she needs to be a U.S. citizen.

    "I've been working really hard for this, and most people around me in the process are Americans," she said. "How can I tell my coach, 'Thank you very much. I'm going to leave and run for Mexico?' "

    Gomez, now 26, has lived in the U.S. since she was 17. When she arrived in Alamosa in 2001, she applied for her legal residency.

    At the time, the San Luis Valley Immigrant Resource Center helped her with the process.

    More recently, the center helped Gomez apply for citizenship, a long process that seems to be nearing the end. The optimistic runner came to Denver on Thursday to get her fingerprints taken - usually a good sign.

    Not quite comfortable accepting help without returning it, Gomez began teaching English as a second language at the center one year ago. All year, Gomez has worked with local immigrant farmworkers as the center's -AmeriCorps volunteer.

    "She always said she wanted to pay back," said Flora Archuleta, another of Gomez's adoptive parents and the executive director of the center.

    As Gomez runs into the future, she'll carry with her the support of her enormous family, the brothers and sisters that she was born with and the teammates, coaches, bosses and farmworkers who've adopted her. And, she hopes, she'll one day represent the country she has adopted.

    "The runner was born here," Gomez said.

    Adams State running strong

    Zoila Gomez is not the only Adams State runner to pile up accomplishments. A look at some of those who established the program's tradition of excellence:

    • Joe Vigil started the trend when he became Adams State's coach in 1963. Vigil (pronounced Vee-hill), an Adams State graduate, coached 425 All-American athletes to 19 national championships. He also coached five runners on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team, including bronze medalist Deena Kastor and silver medalist Meb Keflezighi, both in the 10,000 meters.

    • Damon Martin took over the women's track and cross country teams in 1988 and the men's programs when Vigil retired. He has been named National Coach of the Year 16 times and led the men's and women's teams to Division II national championships in 2003.

    • Julie (Jenkins) Donley ran for Adams State from 1982–85. The 19-time All-American won four national titles and ran the 800-meter race in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

    • Brenda Erikkson graduated in 1986 with 16 All-American honors and three national titles.

    • Amy Giblin, Class of '94, won four national titles.

    • Dan Maas, a 1,500-meter runner, graduated in 1992 with six national championships and 12 All-American honors.

    • Pat Porter, a 10-kilometer runner, won eight national titles, graduated in 1982 and ran in the 1984 and '88 Olympics.

    • Maurice Smith, '87, was a five-time national champ in the 800- and 1,500-meter races.

    • The 1992 men's cross country team had a perfect score at the national championship meet when five runners - Phillip Castillo, Peter DeLaCerda, David Brooks, Paul Stoneham and Jason Mohr - finished at the top of the field within 4 seconds of each other.

    Zoila Gomez by the numbers

    6 NCAA Division II national championships

    10 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championships

    11 All-America honors

    2 times named Division II athlete of the year - for cross-country in 2002 and for outdoor track and field in 2004

    3.46 grade-point average at Adams State College

    32.47 seconds for 10 kilometers, a personal record

    15.57 seconds for 5K, a personal record

    1 selection as winner of the 2004 Honda Award for Best Division II Athlete

    captions under pictures:

    Zoila Gomez would like nothing better than to compete in the U.S. Championships and run for U.S. national teams. But to do that, she needs to be a U.S. citizen. "I've been working really hard for this," a determined Gomez said.


    Hal Stoelzle © News

    Zoila Gomez would like nothing better than to compete in the U.S. Championships and run for U.S. national teams. But to do that, she needs to be a U.S. citizen. "I've been working really hard for this," a determined Gomez says.



    It isn't a stretch to say Gomez - she's getting limber at the Adams State track before a run this month - is focused on her goals. One is to obtain her U.S. citizenship, and another is to become an Olympian. Gomez, 26, has lived in the U.S since she was 17. Although her long-ago plan was to return to Mexico, she remains in Alamosa, where she continues to train and to plot her professional career.


    Photos By Hal Stoelzle © News

    As part of her regimen, Zoila Gomez runs as many as 90 miles a week, and earlier this month, she toed the line by putting in 10 miles outside Alamosa. In December, Gomez graduated from Adams State College with a lengthy list of awards on her résumé. And as she makes tracks into the future, she has the support of family, teammates, coaches, bosses and farmworkers who have adopted her.
    "The defense of a nation begins at it's borders" Tancredo

  4. #4
    Jose's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    70

    Re: Denver "feel good " story and ILLEGAL immigran

    Quote Originally Posted by JackSmith
    In today's Rocky Mountain news Sports section we have a story about a 26 year old who arrived in Colorado from Mexico at age 17. The article says "she applied for her residency when she arrived..." which means what? ILLEGAL immigrant!
    Not necessarily. Visas are available for students and workers, not just residents. I have to add that I'm not surprised at all that people who frequent a paranoid radical anti-immigrant website are so doggone ignorant.

  5. #5
    Senior Member BobC's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    854
    Well here you are, Jose.

  6. #6
    JackSmith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    458

    FAIR and CAIR please investigate!

    If someone at CAIR, Colorado Alliance For Immigration Reform, can investigate this we might have a little scandal here. Jose? How did she enter the country? Legally or illegally? Judy, can you contact FAIR about this story? Tancredo's office as well?

    The young woman might have come in legally BUT if mom is in MEXICO and DAD is dead and she first attended Costa Mesa High School in CA then she must have been illegal until she got to Alamosa. She came in at age 17 and how? There was no amnesty for her to apply for residency. IF she had a student VISA how and where did she get it? We know the law Jose just as well if not better than you. Jose, I will not call youu a racist bbut youu are a lousy excuse for an American citizen if you are not an illegal too?

    Our governor SIGNED a law denying state aid to not only ILLEGALS but legal residents as well. The track coach, athletic director and president of Adams State need to be approached about this and only CAIR or FAIR or the others can do this....I can send letters but until the pres runs with it.....

    Again she may be legal BUT I have my doubts! FAIR investigate please!
    The track coach may have broken Colorado law? Is there a lawyer in the house! Jose, ask Presidente FOX to give her a schoalrship with Mexican tax dolars NOT ours!

  7. #7
    JackSmith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    458
    The article above says "Gomez, now 26, has lived in the U.S. since she was 17. When she arrived in Alamosa in 2001, she applied for her legal residency." This original article was written in July so it is obvious that she was illegal for at least 4 years and why was the track coach allowed to give her a scholarship? I still believe that Colorado State law was broken if college funds were given to an illegal immigrant?

    I still think Tom Tancredo could make a big stink over this...? Can anybody point this case to his attention...?

  8. #8
    JackSmith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    458
    This story is not surprising obviously with 18 million illegals here.....
    She is now a citizen but again the facts don't add up at all on her?

    1. She has 15 brothers and sisters and dad is dead and mom is still in Mexico?
    2. She goes to LA at age 16 or 17 to live with her brother? If she recieved a tourist VISA from the Consulate in Monterrey Mexico then that type of VISA would have specific TIME limits and it would bar her from enrolling in any High School. Work or school on a tourist visa is ILLEGAL!
    3. If her brother in LA got her a LEGAL RESIDENT VISA then why would she be applying in 2001 for legal residency? NO REASON TOO!
    4. The track coach and school officials and INS pulleed strings for her?
    5. We have had no amnesty since 1986 so how was she able to get citizenship last week if ILLEGAL as she entered?
    6. If she recieved "residency" in 2001 then how did she get by the 5 year waiting period for citizenship?

    I only have the information above but this whole story reeks of ILLEGALITY and unfortunately, the track coach and the INS will not be publicly challenged as they should be in my opinion?

    Poor 16 year old gets LEGAL visa to go to LA to live with her brother? I am not buying it but if she had the legal visa obtained in Mexico there was no neeed to apply as the article says in 2001! If she enrolled at Costa Mesa High School afer entering hee US on a tourist visa she broke the terms of that visa! Tourist visa is for tourism not school or work!

    If I am right our Tom Tancredo could grill the local Denver ICE citizenship office! If she violated State Depatment rules then no citizenship should have been allowed from what I know of the law...?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •