DREAM Now Letters: David Cho

DREAM Now Letters: David Cho
crossposted from Citizen Orange
By kyledeb on August 9, 2010



The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service. With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

Dear Mr. President,

My name is David Cho and I'm undocumented.

I will be a senior studying International Economics and Korean at UCLA this upcoming Fall. While most of my friends will enter the workplace after graduation, I will not be able to even put my name down on a job application because of my status. I'm a hardworking student with a 3.6 GPA and I am the first Korean and actually the first undocumented student to ever become the conductor, the drum major of the UCLA Marching Band in UCLA history.
My parents brought me to this country when I was only nine years old. I went to school not knowing a single word of English, and I often became my classmates' object of ridicule - many bullies perpetually and ignorantly harassed me. My reaction to this harassment was to study harder, for I was determined to overcome my obstacles and excel in everything that I did. I studied hard and graduated from my high school with a 3.9 GPA.

It was not until my freshman year of college when I found out about my immigration status. I asked my parents for my social security number when filling out my application for UCLA. There was a long pause. That day, I found out that, after eight years of going through the process, our family visa had expired because our sponsor had mismanaged our paperwork.

Unable to receive any state or federal financial aid due to my status, I work 20 hours a week tutoring high school students while maintaining a high GPA and leading the UCLA Marching Band as their Drum Major.

Mr. President, I feel like I'm living inside an invisible prison cell; these invisible bars block me from doing things, while my U.S. citizen friends can glide right through. I want to serve in the Air Force after graduation. I want to attend Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and I ultimately dream of becoming a U.S. Senator because I want to serve and change this country for the better. This is the American dream I want to achieve, but I am unable to fulfill it because of my status.

I have come out publicly on CNN and on C-SPAN. I'm taking a huge risk in doing so (because I could be deported) but I believe it is a greater risk to be silent in the face of oppression and injustice. This country is throwing away talents every minute, every second. You and I clearly know that our immigration system is broken, but the DREAM Act can bring thousands of students out of the shadows and allow them the opportunity to work for the country that they truly love, right now. It is more critical now, than ever.

I know you have shown your support for the DREAM Act, but I sincerely ask that you take some real action to make sure Congress passes it this year.

Sincerely,
David Cho

The "DREAM Now" letter series is inspired by a similar campaign started by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. The letters are produced by Kyle de Beausset at Citizen Orange with the assistance of America's Voice. Every Monday and Wednesday DREAM-eligible youth will publish letters to the President, and each Friday there will be a DREAM Now recap.

Approximately 65,000 undocumented youth graduate from U.S. high schools every year, who could benefit from passage of the DREAM Act. Many undocumented youth are brought to the United States before they can even remember much else, and some don't even realize their undocumented status until they have to get a driver's license, want to join the military, or apply to college. DREAM Act youth are American in every sense of the word -- except on paper. It's been nearly a decade since the DREAM Act was first introduced. If Congress does not act now, another generation of promising young graduates will be relegated to the shadows and blocked from giving back fully to our great nation.

This is what you can do right now to pass the DREAM Act:

1. Sign the DREAM Act Petition
2. Join the DREAM Act Facebook Cause
3. Send a fax in support of the DREAM Act
4. Call your Senator and ask them to pass the DREAM Act now.
5. Email kyle at citizenorange dot com to get more involved

DREAM Now Letters: Stop The Deportation of Marlen Moreno

Crossposted from Citizen Orange
By kyledeb on August 4, 2010 10:50 AM
DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service. With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Marlen Moreno and I am undocumented. I am also a possible beneficiary of the DREAM Act. On Sunday, August 8, I will be deported.
I was born in Nacozari, Mexico in 1984. My parents brought me to the United States when I was only 13 years old. We were searching for a better life and we found it in Tucson, Arizona. Despite being born in Mexico, I don't consider myself Mexican. I have been living in this country for over thirteen years. The United States is my country and Arizona is my home.

My parents have always told me to value education. I remember them telling me that they came to the United States, "the country of opportunity," so I could live a better life than they did. I never took their sacrifice for granted. In 2002, I became the first and only member of my family to graduate from high school. I was proud of my achievements but scared that I could not go any further. Because of my status, I was not able to continue with my education. My goal is to become a pre-school teacher, because I believe education is the key to success. I want to help children achieve their full potential from a young age, so they can continue to excel in every aspect of their lives.

Despite my goals of higher education, I was forced to put them aside and work as an assistant cleaning houses and a maid in a hotel. This was not what I wanted to do with my life, but I was thankful for any job I was able to get. For four years, I worked hard to support myself and help my family financially knowing that someday I would be able to live out the American Dream.

In 2007, my first son was born, Freddy Alan. Thanks to him, I came to know what it means to be a mother. I never knew I could be this happy or love someone as much as I love him. I went back to work soon after his birth because I wanted to provide him with everything he deserved.

On March 28, 2008, my son and I were awakened by a loud bang on our door. Before I could fully figure out what was happening, ten heavily armed deputies came into my house and arrested me because I am undocumented. I was taken to jail and held without bail.

I was detained for over four months, when I was finally released and allowed to reunite with my son once again. When I came home, after four and a half months, I realized how much I had missed. My son had turned one and he had learned how to walk while I was in jail. It pains me to know that I never saw his first crawl, the first time he sat up, learned to play, his first bites of real food, or when he took his first steps. But what pains me the most is the fact that he didn't recognize me, his own mother, after I got out of jail. It still brings tears to my eyes knowing my own son didn't know who I was. It took us months to come back together, like we had been before we were separated.

I try not to think about the way I was treated during this time. I had been treated like a criminal, as if I had robbed a bank when all I was doing was working to provide for my son and my family. It was not the same America I had grown up knowing.

In 2009, I met my husband and we married. He came into my life at a time when I needed him the most. He provided the support and love that I needed, and I will never forget that. In November of 2009, I had my second son, Leobardo Jr. My husband is a Lawful Permanent Resident and both of my sons are citizens. I am the only person in my family who is undocumented, but I still cannot legalize my status.

For the past year I have been fighting my deportation but now I am at the end of that fight and I am being told I must leave the United States by August 8th. I cannot think about being separated from my husband and my sons. I don't want to think about going back to Mexico, a place I don't consider my home.

I consider myself an American. This is where my husband and my children are and I don't want to be separated from them. I want to continue living my life in this country and I want to contribute back. I am not a criminal. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter. I am a human being.

Please act to stop my deportation and to pass the DREAM Act now so that I can have a chance at a life in the only country I know as my home, later. I only have 3 days before I'm deported. This is what I need most urgently from you. Please:

1. Sign the petition for asking for me to stay
2. Send a fax to DHS to ask them to allow me to stay
3. Call Janet Napolitano, Director of DHS at 202-282-8495 and leave a message in support of me. This is an answering machine that fills up by the end of the day, so please fill it up with support for me.
4. Call John Morton, Director of ICE, at 202-732-3000 leave a message urging him to take action and defer my deportation. This is a live comment line that will be picked up by a real human being so please be very polite

For both calls you can say something along the lines of:

"I am calling to leave a message of support for Marlen Moreno (A#88-771-833) who is being deported on August 8th, I ask that Director Morton please step in to defer her deportation, she is an asset to this country. Thank you."


The "DREAM Now" letter series is inspired by a similar campaign started by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Every Monday and Wednesday DREAM-eligible youth will publish letters to the President, and each Friday there will be a DREAM wrap-up. If you're interested in getting involved or posting these stories on your site, please email Kyle de Beausset at kyle at citizenorange dot com.

Approximately 65,000 undocumented youth graduate from U.S. high schools every year, who could benefit from passage of the DREAM Act. Many undocumented youth are brought to the United States before they can even remember much else, and some don't even realize their undocumented status until they have to get a driver's license, want to join the military, or apply to college. DREAM Act youth are American in every sense of the word -- except on paper. It's been nearly a decade since the DREAM Act was first introduced. If Congress does not act now, another generation of promising young graduates will be relegated to the shadows and blocked from giving back fully to our great nation.

This is what you can do right now to pass the DREAM Act:

1. Sign the DREAM Act Petition
2. Join the DREAM Act Facebook Cause
3. Send a fax in support of the DREAM Act
4. Call your Senator and ask them to pass the DREAM Act now.
5. Email kyle at citizenorange dot com to get more involved

DREAM Now Letters: Tania Unzueta

crossposted from America's Voice & Citizen Orange





The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service. With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Tania Unzueta and I'm undocumented.

I have lived in Chicago since I was 10 years old. I came with my mother to join my father, who had found a stable job and a promise to legalize his status. Eventually our tourist visas ran out, and my family became undocumented.

For years we lived in a small basement, then a small apartment. When we moved here, my dad had been offered a job with the promise of regularizing his status through employer sponsorship, 245-i. Our family was going through that process when the workers began to organize a union, and asked for the support of my dad. He gave it to them, which resulted in his dismissal from his position, and an end to the sponsorship.

I too have tried and failed to regularize my immigration status. When I graduated from high school I went to Mexico to try to apply for an international student visa, so that I could attend the colleges to which I had been accepted. Even though I was the captain of my swim team and an honors student, my visa was not accepted. Eventually I was able to get a humanitarian visa to come back to Chicago. I pinned a lot of hopes for my future on the 2003 DREAM Act. It failed. I hoped again in 2007- to the same result. Ever since then I have only tried to do the best I can with my life, trying to have a balance between being happy, giving back to my community, and working for the passage of the DREAM Act.

I was there with the DREAM Act 5 in John McCain's office when three undocumented youth made history as the first undocumented immigrants commit civil disobedience and get detained with the aim of changing U.S. immigration law. I was also one of the DREAM Act 21 to get arrested, for the second time in U.S. history, on Capitol Hill in a mostly successful effort to get Congress shift towards taking up the DREAM Act this year (any and all help offsetting the costs of attending our court date is appreciated, by the way). How many more youth will have to detain themselves before Congress passes the DREAM Act? How many more lives have to be put on hold or lost to the shadows before our leaders act?

The time to pass the DREAM Act is now. Please join us.

Sincerely,
Tania Unzueta

DREAM University!

On July 14, 2010, “the gates to higher education opened wide, as all those Dreams deferred are accepted and cordially invited to Washington DC to be the inaugural class of DREAM University”. Sponsored by United We Dream Network, and preceding the National DREAM Graduation, it is the kick off to a mass mobilization intended to pressure Congress to pass the DREAM Act before the August recess. The youth attending Dream University come from all walks of life, citizens, immigrants and undocumented, and to many, being there represents a hardship and a sacrifice, and indeed a risk. DREAMers came to the U.S. as children and grew up as Americans, and their only wish is to be allowed to fully contribute to the only homeland they know. Many of them dream of serving the military. Others would be teachers, nurses, policemen, doctors and scientists. But due to their immigration status, there is currently no way to make their hopes and dreams come true. DREAM University will provide attendees with the tools and strategies to lobby Congress and increase public support of the cause. If you would like to attend or participate, please contact carlos@unitedwedream.org. If you can not attend you can donate at ourdream2005@gmail.com. Please also take the time to sign the DREAM Act petition if you have not already.

PASS THE DREAM ACT NOW!

ASU president pushes for passage of 'Dream Act'

Arizona State University President Michael Crow is pushing for passage of a federal law that would enable illegal immigrant students to remain in the United States, get their college degrees and have a path to citizenship. The bill, called the "Dream Act," has been introduced several times in recent years but has not been approved by Congress.
Crow sent a two-page letter recently to four U.S. senators who are supporters of the legislation and/or in leadership roles in the Senate. ASU officials said they also sent the letter to some other members of Congress, including those from Arizona.
It was signed by eight other university presidents, including Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California system, and Charles B. Reed, president of the California State University system. The letter urges Congress to pass the measure as stand-alone legislation or as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
The letter says that undocumented high school graduates who want to obtain a college education are being thwarted by the country's dysfunctional immigration system.
"These are students brought to the United States as children, innocents caught up in the middle of the immigration debate," the letter says. "The decision to come to this country was not theirs. But America is the only home they have known and they have spent their young lives being good students, working hard and staying out of trouble."
The letter goes on to detail the benefits of a college education: higher wages, lower crime rates and less likely to end up on public assistance.
Over the past year, various college presidents have come out in support of the Dream Act, including Harvard President Drew Gilpin, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutman and Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, among others.
The latest version of the "Dream Act," introduced in March 2009 would apply to people under age 35 who entered the U.S. before age 16 and have been in the country at least five consecutive years. They have to graduate from a U.S. high school, or have obtained a GED or be accepted at a college or university. They also have to be of "good moral character," although the legislation doesn't define exactly what that means. Students would get conditional permanent residency, meaning they couldn't be deported for being here illegally while they are in school. They would eventually be able to apply for legal residency and then to be a U.S. citizen.
The letter signed by the college presidents asks Congress to go a step further and allow Dream Act students to be eligible for federal financial aid. Illegal immigrants currently cannot get federal financial aid, such as federal student loans or Pell grants, to attend school.
The letter was also signed by presidents from the University of Washington, the University of Minnesota, the University of Utah, Washington State University, the University of New Mexico and Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich.
The letter was sent to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the sponsor of the 2009 Dream Act legislation, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana). Durbin sponsored the legislation and Lugar and Schumer are co-sponsors.
crossposted from LiveWireBlog/azcentral.com

Call to Action: Mass DREAM Mobilization in Washington D.C. on July 19th-21st

The time to mobilize and demand the dream act is now. We have a short window of opportunity to pass the Dream Act in congress. Over the course of the last two years we have been successful in building up our collective base and now more than ever, we need to show our collective power as immigrant youth. We have been able to accomplish many things including securing 40 co sponsors in the Senate and develop Dream Teams in places that have never had a base before. All of this work, all of the petition signatures you gathered and sent in are now bearing fruit. All of the rallies you attended to meet new people, all of the lobby visits and relationships you built are now critical for passage of the Dream Act. Make your work count now! Come to Washington D.C. between July 19^th and the 21^st for three days of escalation and action on Capitol Hill.

Join us for a mass mobilization for the DREAM Act on Capitol Hill from July 19-21st

Dont know how to get started? Follow the steps below to get started

Individuals:

If you are an individual:

talk to friends and family and get them to come to D.C. with you.
• Check out the Dream Map to see if there any youth projects near your area and contact them to see if you they will be mobilizing to DC

Youth Groups

If you are working in a group try to organize a caravan to D.C. There are several being planned across the country. Register on our website and we can follow up with you by connecting you to a group near you.

Organization

If you are a part of an organization try to organize a bus delegation to D.C! Register your organization on our registration form and we will follow up with more information and logistics.

REGISTER NOW

Get Ready Cause We're Coming Back

Two weeks ago, over 200,000 people of all colors, creeds, and socioeconomic levels, from all over our nation, marched on Washington to deliver a simple message: Mr. President, members of Congress, we want the change you promised us.



That such a large amount of people should gather in a peaceful and orderly manner is an accomplishment in and of itself. We have testament of the power of the march in Nezua's moving, beautiful video. It was an amazing experience for all that participated;our own DREAM Act cohort was represented by hundreds of students from all over the nation. For myself, it was a chance to finally meet face to face many of the amazing DREAMers I have gotten to "know" online over the past two years.


However, if like me you surfed TV and the net that night looking for coverage,to judge the amount of coverage the national media gave the March for America, it might as well have been a few hundred rather than hundreds of thousands. Insulting when you consider the coverage given to every half assed teabagger gathering. But healthcare legislation passed that night, so we ended the day with hope.

But right now, my patience and hope is wearing a little thin. While Congress keeps playing politics with people's lives, detentions and deportations are on the rise, and we have tragedies like Gustavo Rezende's; as his hopes and dreams died so did his will to live. I will not stand for any more losses. So get ready,Mr. President and members of Congress, because we are coming back on May 1st. No more stalling. We'll be at your doorstep. We won't slow back down, we won't be pacified with vague promises. We will keep rallying,writing and calling until you stand up and do the job for which you were elected.Fulfill your promise and PASS THE DREAM ACT!