Immigrants "come out" at Winston-Salem rally
By: BERTRAND M. GUTIERREZ | Winston-Salem Journal

Published: October 25, 2011

Uriel Alberto doesn't carry a wallet.
"You know, I've asked myself, 'Why β€” why don't I carry a wallet?' It's because I have no driver's license. I have no Social Security card. No bank account. I've never had these basic things. I'm not even a second-class citizen. I'm a third-class citizen," he said Monday.
Alberto, a 24-year-old Winston-Salem resident, made those comments on the main campus of Forsyth Technical Community College a few minutes before he declared himself as "undocumented" during a rally of about 50 people, some holding signs that read, "There Are No Illegal People."
The goal was to raise awareness about what immigrants advocates say is the plight of young, educated immigrants who were raised mostly in the United States but are not authorized to be in the country because their parents brought them here illegally when they were young.
Organized by the immigrants advocacy group El Cambio, which is based in Yadkinville, the rally participants want Congress to pass federal legislation known as the DREAM Act, which would give young, educated immigrants a pathway to residency as long as they meet certain conditions, such as attending college or joining the military.
Opponents of immigration reform say even if these young immigrants did not decide to come to the U.S., allowing them to stay would attract more illegal immigration. In addition, they say that the DREAM Act is a form of amnesty and that all immigrants should try to re-enter the U.S. legally.
But supporters at the rally, including the Rev. Stewart Ellis, who was the pastor for 17 years at Trinity Presbyterian Church off Bolton Street, offered a different point of view.
"They just want equal opportunity to get an education, something that the rest of us take for granted," Ellis said. "Our whole society loses out when these kids can't contribute the way they want to."
Alberto was 7 when he left Mexico in 1994 with his 6-year-old sister, Cristina.
By 1996, the family was in Winston-Salem. Alberto, who speaks English and Spanish fluently, attended Wiley Middle School and went on to graduate from Parkland High School in 2005 as a track-and-field standout.
After he graduated, Alberto went to Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, but he spent just three semesters there because he didn't have enough money to continue, he said. Meanwhile, state colleges were out of the question, he said, because of the out-of-state tuition requirement.
"It's been six years of my life at a standstill," Alberto said.
In North Carolina, about 51,000 immigrants such as Alberto would probably qualify for the DREAM Act.
Such immigrants in this state are allowed to attend public colleges, but they must pay out-of-state tuition and are not eligible for public financial aid. So young people such as Alberto must pay tuition costs that are about four times more than those paid by in-state students.
At Forsyth Tech, for example, an associate degree can cost more than $4,300 over two years β€” unless the student must pay the out-of-state rate. Then it costs about $16,800, according credit-hour and tuition information on the school's website.
But the rally was about more than money.
It was about this immigrant generation's burgeoning effort to find a place in society. It was about respect β€” the simple notion that people without the nine digits that come with a Social Security card or without the proper papers to be in the U.S. are just as worthy as any other human.
For example, Giovanna Hurtado of Elkin spoke fiercely through tears at the rally. She forced herself to describe to the crowd in a loud voice how attorneys and judges, impressed by her work ethic at the law firm where she is employed, have told her that she should go to law school.
Of course, she can't go because of the tuition, she said.
"After graduation, I died. I got depressed," she said, describing the limited options before her as her friends went to college. "But I am here to say that I am Giovanna Hurtado, and I am undocumented and unafraid!"

http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/oc ... r-1534751/