UW grad granted last-minute stay of deportation

Martha Kang

January 4, 2010

SEATTLE -- The undocumented University of Washington student facing deportation has been granted a last-minute stay.

The Department of Homeland Security deferred the deportation of Jorge-Alonso Chehade on Monday, just one day before his scheduled deportation hearing. Chehade has been ordered to report to immigration officials on Feb. 15 instead.

Chehade is the son of Peruvian nationals who immigrated to the U.S. illegally. He was14 then, and grew up unaware of the implications his parents' - and consequently, his - actions, shielded by a 1982 court ruling that entitles undocumented children to a public education up to the 12th grade (Plyler vs. Doe).

"I always knew but it was just part of my reality -- a reality that started getting to me when (I started) seeing my friends at the U taking on internships and traveling abroad, which I couldn't," he said.

Now 22, Chehade has been fighting to stay in the U.S. since last March, when he got lost during a weekend trip to Bellingham. A wrong turn led Chehade to the U.S.-Canada border where he was identified as an undocumented immigrant and detained.

Chehade was scheduled to be deported last September, but a personal bill introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, bought him some time.

He faced another deadline in November, but Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., pressed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to reexamine the case. Cantwell successfully convinced federal officials to defer action on Chehade's case, but only until the end of 2009 and not until the end of the current legislative session, as she'd hoped.

Chehade has been granted a series of stays, but he has no reason to believe a deportation isn't in his future. Still, he has not surrendered to what may appear to be his inevitable fate; Chehade is fighting to stay in the place he's made his home.

"I consider myself an American because even though I was born in Peru, I was shaped by this nation. I learned all the chapters of the American story," he said. "I feel that I deserve a chance to have the opportunity to have a normal life."

The unique barriers faced by Chehade and other undocumented children are not lost to lawmakers.

The U.S. Senate is currently debating the DREAM Act, which would grant temporary legal status to the qualifying children of undocumented immigrants and make them eligible for U.S. Citizenship. Both Cantwell and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., support the measure.

And lawmakers in the U.S. House are debating the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security And Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009, which proposes a process through which undocumented workers can apply for resident status and citizenship.

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