Thread: The News is asking GOP presidential candidates if Nadia Habi

The News is asking GOP presidential candidates if Nadia Habib deserves deportation

nydailynews.com
Editorials
Friday, September 30th 2011, 4:00 AM


Nadia Habib, a 20-year-old from Queens, is facing deportation to Bangladesh.

The question has been put to the Republican presidential candidates: Should the United States deport 20-year-old Nadia Habib of Queens and her mother, Nazmin, to Bangladesh as illegal immigrants?

Under pressure from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the Obama administration yesterday spared Nadia and Nazmin, at least temporarily, from being separated by an ocean and a continent from Nadia's father, who is a legal resident, and her three siblings, who are citizens by birth.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency made the right and humane call in granting a reprieve to Nadia and Nazmin shortly before they were due to board a plane. Booting them would only have highlighted even more dramatically how unjust and unwise America's immigration policies are.

The GOP contenders may have different perspectives as they seek to lead a party that vehemently opposes providing a path to citizenship to the country's 11 million undocumented residents.

Their stances include revoking the grant of citizenship to anyone born here, standing against the DREAM Act, which would offer safe harbor to children who were brought into the country illegally and have good records, and focusing on border security to the exclusion of all else.

Thus the Daily News Editorial Board yesterday emailed queries to the campaigns of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. The intent is to measure the human impact of their rhetoric and policies on families like the Habibs.

Nadia's father, Jawad, came to the U.S. in 1981. He started driving a taxi and earned a green card. Nazmin and Nadia came here in 1993, on a tourist visa, when Nadia was 20 months old. They overstayed the visa, becoming illegal immigrants.

Having settled in Woodside, the family grew with three more siblings: Naiem, Fahad and Nashita, all citizens by birth. Nadia, a top student, graduated from Bronx High School of Science and now studies psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

In an attempt to become legal, Nazmin and Nadia petitioned for asylum, citing the possibility of political persecution if forced to return to Bangladesh. Their bid was rejected in 2000 and they remained in legal limbo until Sept. 10, when the feds ordered them out of the country.

ICE deports about 400,000 people a year, a number that Director John Morton says is the agency's top capacity. He announced recently that, with so many undocumented residents to choose from, his agents would make a priority of getting rid of the estimated 1 million criminals in the illegal population, followed by recent border crossers, followed by repeat offenders.

The guidelines have been derided as giving amnesty to all others, despite the fact that the U.S. cannot deport an 11-million member population of illegal mothers, fathers and children. Again, Perry, Romney, Cain, Bachmann, Huntsman, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul may disagree.

So what say each of them to the question? Would you have ripped Nadia and Nazmin away from Jawad, Naiem, Fahad and Nashita - and away from America?

We await replies.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/201 ... z1ZUVxFAeY

More liberal guilt games.

Bangladeshi mom, daughter to stay in US for now

MEGHAN BARR
Associated Press
9/30/2011

NEW YORK — The deportation letter arrived just as Nadia Habib was starting her junior year at Stony Brook University, its message straightforward and scary: Please report to our offices on Sept. 29, and be prepared to leave the country.

Habib, who moved to the U.S. from Bangladesh when she was a toddler, had known that she was an illegal immigrant since she was a teenager, her attorney says. But the knowledge that she would have to leave the country where she grew up — the place she calls home — was a horrible shock.

"It's a crazy situation to be in for someone like her," said her attorney, Aygul Charles. "To just kind of go through the motions and do the things that a normal college student would do, then have this letter sent to you that says `pack your bags.'"

Habib and her mother, Nazmin Habib, were granted a temporary reprieve Thursday as immigration officials postponed a final decision on their case, allowing them to stay in the U.S. for now. The two women arrived at a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan for their deportation meeting prepared to say goodbye to their family and board a plane. But instead, they emerged from the courthouse smiling as about 100 supporters cheered and chanted "education not deportation!"

"We still have a lot of waiting and hoping to do," Nadia Habib told supporters. "I'm just nervous. Tomorrow's my birthday, so this is kind of a great birthday present."

Immigration officials fingerprinted them, confiscated the Habibs' passports and put them under an order of supervision, which requires them to meet periodically with an immigration officer while their case is being reviewed. They weren't told when a decision would be made, though immigration officers said it was a high-priority case, Charles said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has been working with immigration officials on behalf of the family, released a statement praising the decision not to deport them.

"I am thrilled that Nadia will be celebrating her 20th birthday tomorrow at home with her family and will be continuing her studies in the only country she's ever known," Gillibrand said.

The Habib family has taken a confusing legal path toward citizenship ever since they arrived in the U.S. in 1993 from Bangladesh with baby Nadia. Some details of the legal proceedings remain murky, as they have switched lawyers several times over the years. Charles was brought onto the case only a week ago, when Nadia Habib filled out an online form seeking help from the New York State Youth Leadership Council, an advocacy group that quickly took up her cause.

The problem began when Nazmin Habib became ill and missed a scheduled hearing in U.S. Immigration Court on April 26, 2000, according to a court document. The judge proceeded to conduct a hearing in absentia and denied her request for asylum based on past persecution in Bangladesh, Charles said.

When the Habibs tried to reopen the case by providing a doctor's note, the judge said the note was not credible because the doctor was not found in the court's registered list of physicians. Charles said this was a clerical error that was never corrected.

Nadia Habib's siblings were born in the U.S. and are thus citizens, while her father successfully applied for his green card based on his relationship with his children, Charles said.

"His attorney at the time told him that he shouldn't include his wife or Nadia in the application," Charles said. "I've been told by other attorneys that that's nonsense."

Many immigrant children like Nadia Habib don't learn that they are illegal until their teens, when they're applying for a driver's license or to college, Charles said.

The most famous example in recent memory was Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who discovered he was an illegal immigrant in high school after emigrating from the Philippines in 1993. Vargas lied about his immigration status to employers for years until he wrote about his struggles in a magazine story earlier this year. He lost his driver's license after the story was published, but has not been deported.

"This goes on throughout the country," Charles said. "There's so many kids in Nadia's shoes."

The family was not available for interviews on Thursday, and Charles was unable to provide the names of their prior attorneys. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Luis Martinez said the agency can't discuss the case without a privacy waiver.

Sara Martinez, 22, was among those who came out to support the family.

"The immigration system is broken and flawed," said Martinez, whose own family immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a baby.

Habib, who previously attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science, told reporters that she would be returning to class Monday at the state university on Long Island.

"Obviously, it's a roller coaster. I'm just really grateful to be able to stay here longer," she said. "I'm just gonna continue doing what I've been doing, living my life as I have. And wait for an answer."

http://ap.thecabin.net/pstories/us/2011 ... 5562.shtml

Would you have ripped Nadia and Nazmin away from Jawad, Naiem, Fahad and Nashita -

They can stay as a family....ALL LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!