Thread: Jose Vargas, Outspoken Immigrant Advocate Is Released in Visa Case

Outspoken Immigrant Advocate Is Released in Visa Case

Jose Antonio Vargas, Immigrant Activist, Is Released After Being Detained

By JULIA PRESTONJULY 15, 2014

VideoPLAY VIDEO|1:02

Immigration Activist Detained in Texas
Immigration Activist Detained in Texas

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an activist for immigrants, like him, who do not have legal status, was detained at McAllen-Miller International Airport on Tuesday.
Video CreditBy Brent McDonald on Publish DateJuly 15, 2014. Image CreditBrent McDonald/The New York Times

McALLEN, Tex. — Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented Filipino immigrant who is arguably the most high-profile leader of the immigrants’ rights movement, was detained Tuesday morning at a Border Patrol checkpoint in the airport here before he could board a flight to Houston.

He was handcuffed and taken for processing to the McAllen Border Patrol station, which has been teeming in recent weeks with undocumented immigrants from Central America, part of a wave of migrants who have been streaming over the border. Hours later, he announced in a statement that he had been released. He did not provide more information.



Mr. Vargas, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, came last week to McAllen, a city just a few miles north of the border with Mexico, for a news conference and vigil organized by United We Dream, an undocumented youth organization, outside a shelter downtown for recently released Central American migrants. Mr. Vargas wrote recently that he did not realize until he was here that he would have to cross through a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint to leave the Rio Grande Valley. Mr. Vargas travels on a valid Philippine passport, but it has no current United States visa in it.

His apprehension highlighted the dilemmas facing the Obama administration at a time when the border situation has made all decisions about immigration high profile and politically fraught.

GRAPHIC

The Crisis With Children Crossing the Border

The number of children crossing the U.S. border alone has doubled since last year. Answers to key questions on the crisis.

OPEN GRAPHIC

Mr. Vargas insisted he never intended to be detained when he came to South Texas, but his supporters were working hard — on Twitter and at a news conference in front of the Border Patrol station where he was held — to use the publicity to advance their demands for fewer deportations of illegal immigrants living in the country and more protections for the children crossing recently.

A blurry photograph sent by a spokesman showed Mr. Vargas in McAllen airport as a Border Patrol agent handcuffed him.

In an interview Sunday, Mr. Vargas said he had flown to many events around the country in recent months where he showed a documentary film he produced, “Documented,” about his life as an undocumented immigrant. He had not been stopped at airport checkpoints because Transportation Security Administration officials checked his passport but not his immigration status.

Photo

Jose Antonio Vargas in June.CreditKevork Djansezian/Reuters

“I didn’t even think twice about it,” when he accepted the invitation to join the news conference, Mr. Vargas said. When he realized that he was effectively trapped, he said, “No, this can’t be for real.” He wrote about his situation in McAllen for Politico Magazine last week.
Because of McAllen’s proximity to the border, all airports and roadways in this region have Border Patrol checkpoints.

Mr. Vargas has lived in the United States without papers since he was 12. He was formerly a reporter for The Washington Post, where he was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage in 2008. He announced his undocumented status in an article in The New York Times Magazine in 2011.

Correction: July 15, 2014
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly identified where Jose Antonio Vargas wrote of his realization that he would have to pass through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint to leave the Rio Grande Valley. It was in his article for Politico Magazine, not on Twitter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us...-arrested.html

RELATED

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

...The U.S. Border Patrol said agents apprehended Vargas "after he stated that he was in the country illegally." He was later released on his own recognizance and provided with a notice to appear before an immigration judge...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0FK1S520140715

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency released the following statement:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol Agents operating at McAllen-Miller International Airport encountered Mr. Vargas and apprehended him after he stated that he was in the country illegally.

Mr. Vargas was transported to the McAllen Border Patrol Station where he was processed and provided with a Notice to Appear before an immigration judge. He was released on his own recognizance after consultation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Vargas has not previously been arrested by ICE nor has the agency ever issued a detainer on him or encountered him.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/jose-anto...ce-deportation

Lou Dobbs Destroys Illegal Alien with inconvenient facts about LEGAL IMMIGRATION




Published on Jun 23, 2012
Lou Dobbs Destroys Illegal Alien (Why isn't he being deported?)
with inconvenient truth about America's ILLEGAL, as opposed to LEGAL
immigration problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGSZYxywZ6c