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Posted on Sun, Oct. 09, 2005

IMMIGRATION


Migrant learns a bitter lesson

The dream of getting an education ended for a Guatemalan man who now faces deportation for posing as a teenager and attending high school in Florida.

BY CARA BUCKLEY

cbuckley@herald.com


NEW PORT RICHEY - For all the tribulations life has thrown his way, Josué Ramirez never knew defeat, until now.

The 27-year-old Guatemalan man is entering his third week in a Pasco County detention center an hour north of Tampa, charged with a third-degree felony for fudging his birth certificate to attend a local high school.

His lawyer is almost certain his client will get probation at worst, but that is the least of Ramirez's concerns. He is in the United States illegally, and now immigration authorities know it. Once the state is finished with him, his deportation is all but a sure thing.

''I'm very sad, I don't want to go back,'' Ramirez said in an interview inside the jail Thursday, shivering in his navy prison uniform from the cold and lack of sleep.

''I always wanted to go to high school, but I had no idea how to do it,'' he continued. ``I wanted an education, not just to learn English, but a diploma, to better myself and go to college.''

Ramirez's deception was discovered after he misplaced his wallet during a physical education class a month after the school year began. Baby-faced and diminutive, standing just five-foot-four, Ramirez easily passed for a teen. He had enrolled using school transcripts from Guatemala and a doctored birth certificate, having switched two numbers to make his birth year, 1978, look like 1987.

When school officials looked for the wallet's owner, they found identification revealing Ramirez's true age. Alarmed, they called police, who demanded to know whether he was selling drugs or worse. ''No,'' Ramirez, a devout Christian, said he replied. ``I just wanted to learn.''

He was arrested, and a quick check with Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed him to be an illegal immigrant.

By most measures, Ramirez's tale, if not his situation, is unique. His lawyer, assistant public defender Willie Pura, said his office had never heard of a similar case, nor had the sheriff's office nor the Guatemalan consulate in Miami nor the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic rights group.

''We wouldn't condone this, but it certainly speaks to the pervasive misconception out there that Spanish-speaking people don't want to learn English,'' said Lisa Navarette, a La Raza spokeswoman. ``The opposite is true. This is an extreme example, but people are desperate to learn English.''

For Ramirez, the arrest marks a bitter chapter in what appears a naive if familiar quest to attain the American dream.

Ramirez crossed into the United States with a van load of illegal migrants 14 years ago when he was barely a teen. He lived in West Palm Beach with his sister and worked construction jobs to pay off the $5,000 debt he owed for the smuggling trip. Last December he and his brother Máximo, 33, moved to the small town of Holiday just south of New Port Richey and shared a dingy one-bedroom apartment on a forlorn, dead-end street.

Máximo Ramirez, who is also undocumented, holds his brother in awe, and said Josué was long viewed as the family's brightest child.

Josué Ramirez eschewed television, listening instead to English radio or poring over books. He attended weekly Pentecostal services, and implored Máximo to do the same. He also started a tiling company, which he registered with the state, and the pair worked long, grueling hours. After they saved about $5,000, Máximo urged Josué to enroll in school.

''He was always very special, a very good brother, very smart, and he helped me and my parents very much,'' Máximo Ramirez said outside the brothers' apartment one recent night. 'I told him, `Go study. It's your dream. I'll support you; I'll work.' ''

Josué Ramirez didn't want to attend night school; he wanted to immerse himself in daylong classes. High schools cannot deny entry to undocumented students, but Ramirez didn't know that and agonized about the forgery. But after enrolling in J.W. Mitchell High School, a boxy, putty-colored place in nearby Trinity, he threw himself into class work.

''I wanted to be a better student,'' Ramirez said. ``I wanted to be the best.''

Excitement over his arrest has subsided, though students seem divided between feeling empathy and disapproval over what their overly mature classmate did.

''He was just trying to get an education but, I mean, he's 27. He should've taken adult classes,'' senior Cole Cisbani, 17, said.

Ramirez will likely appear before a judge within the month. He also has an outstanding warrant in Palm Beach County for failing to appear for a careless driving charge and for possessing a fake driver's license. Pam McCullough, a Tampa-area spokeswoman for ICE, said the agency has instructions to pick him up.

''He presented false documents to the school, and entering the country without inspection is a federal offense, so he would be a good candidate for deportation,'' McCullough said.

Máximo Ramirez, for his part, sees irony in his brother's arrest. ''So many people drop out, and he only wanted to study,'' he said.

Weary of the United States, Máximo Ramirez planned on returning to his hometown of Escuintla, south of Guatemala City, this December, but now will await word of his brother's fate.

''Being illegal here, it's very ugly, people look at me like I'm an animal,'' Máximo Ramirez said. ``But my brother loves it here. If they send him away, he'll probably come right back.''