Healthcare bill raises fear of denied coverage among legal immigrants

As Congress moves closer to passing legislation that will expand health insurance coverage to 30 million Americans, many immigrant rights advocates worry that proposed reforms will leave large numbers of legal immigrants without insurance.

At issue is whether Congress will retain a 1996 welfare reform law requiring legal, non-citizen immigrants to wait five years before they become eligible for federal benefits and extend it to a waiting period for subsidies as well. If retained, (as proposed in the Senate bill) it could affect more than one million legal immigrants, according to an October 2009 report by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

Also worrisome are strict screening processes proposed in the House bill used to prevent undocumented immigrants from obtaining benefits. Immigrant rights advocates question the effectiveness of these processes, which they say will force legal immigrants to “jump through hoops” to prove their eligibility and could delay critical medical services to those who need them most.

Francisco I. and his family emigrated from Chile seven years ago. As legal residents who are not yet citizens, they pay the same taxes as citizens and are subject to the same laws. Last year Francisco’s father, an engineer, lost his job and with it the family healthcare benefits. He has since found work but his employer does not offer insurance.

When Francisco recently became ill with a high fever, the family could not afford a doctor. After several days, his father found a doctor who agreed to treat Francisco for less than a normal office visit.

“We still ended up paying about $150 just to get somebody to see what was wrong with me and another $150 for medicine,” he says.

Now he worries about what would happen if something more serious were to happen.

“It’s not just getting sick - it’s accidents that worry me the most. Like if I fall and break an arm or get something like a concussion or get in a car crash.”

Current U.S. Census Bureau figures show that 24 million immigrants now live in this country. About 12 million are legal residents, like Francisco. Although most legal immigrants are employed, the MPI report found that 38 percent work at small firms of 25 employees or less. Only one out of three of these workers is insured compared with seven out of 10 U.S.-born workers in similar-sized firms.

While Congress will likely mandate employers to provide insurance for their workers, small firms will probably be exempted from these mandates.

Experts say this will force millions of immigrant workers, many who live below the federal poverty line, to purchase health insurance themselves or turn to already jammed emergency rooms and clinics for medical care.

“Let them buy their own healthcare,” Evelyn Miller, a spokesperson for the California Coalition for Immigration Reform argues. “Why should they go on public benefits?”

The CCIR, established in 1992, is a group who seeks to have current immigration laws enforced, borders secured and illegal aliens deported, Miller explains. She believes that the five-year waiting period should be retained and that only citizens should be eligible for federal healthcare benefits.

“When people come to this country legally to join a family member or they are sponsored by somebody who is a citizen, the sponsor signs an affidavit claiming that the legal immigrant will not be a drain on our public benefits,” Miller says. “So they’re not supposed to get public benefits.”

She says that legal immigrants get a lot of benefits that U.S. citizens do not.

“They go in and try to get food stamps or housing subsidies and all they have to do is show that they have no funds and no income and they get it right away. It’s really a travesty,” she says.

And what about those immigrants who can’t afford to purchase health insurance?

Some will turn to free clinics like the Lestonnac Free Clinic in Orange County, Calif., which sees more than 3,500 patients with about 14,000 visits a year, according to Executive Director Ed Gerber.

Founded in 1979 by a Catholic nun, Lestonnac is funded primarily by private foundations and community donations, with about five percent of the funding coming from the state. Medical services are donated by thirty physicians and fifteen dentists, whom Gerber calls “the backbone of the clinic.”

The clinic’s primary mission is to help the uninsured, whether they are in this country legally or not, Gerber says, so they never question a patient’s documentation.

“We’re not a government agency; we don’t care what their issue is,” he says.

He stresses the importance of providing medical treatment and testing to all immigrants.

“We don’t know who is in line in front of us in the grocery store. We don’t know if this person has tuberculosis or if this person has the swine flu, which is so prominent today,” he says. “We really need to try to take care of these people, especially the new population of immigrants coming in to California, so that we’re not spreading disease to everybody else.”

Fear is a daily part of life for illegal immigrants who fear deportation and for legal immigrants who fear legal entanglements with their citizenship process, so they seek medical care less often than citizens.

A 1997 study by The Kaiser Commission found that citizen children, on average, had over three times as many visits to the emergency room as non citizen children of non citizen parents.

Recently, Gerber has seen a proliferation of minority-run clinics that exploit the fear of newly-arrived immigrants by charging enormous prices for lab work, x-rays, ultra-sounds and other often unnecessary services.

“I find it deplorable that there are doctors out there that start clinics and they rip off their own people,” he says. “These people are afraid to come to community clinics like us because they’re illegal and they’re uncomfortable and they’re afraid we’re going to turn them in. To me, this is an enormous problem that’s happening here in Orange County. They’re just raping their own people and it needs to stop.”

Chilean immigrant Francisco knows people who have avoided going to the emergency room out of fear. They think that a border patrol agent is going to show up at the emergency room. And after they’re done getting their healthcare they’ll get kicked out,” he says.

His own fear of jeopardizing his pending citizenship is so strong that he refused to be identified for this article.

Recent government figures show that more than 20,000 people immigrated legally to Orange County last year, bringing the total foreign-born population to more than 900,000. To meet the growing demand for healthcare, Lestonnac has opened two new clinics – one in Santa Ana and another in Los Alamitos. Plans are underway to open two more in January 2010.

Despite the fact that President Obama’s goal of “healthcare for all Americans” may soon become a reality, Gerber is skeptical that the programs will impact the people he treats at his clinics.

“My hope is that it will make healthcare better. That’s all of our dreams – that whatever Congress does, it actually works,” he says. “As far as impacting us, I don’t particularly see how any of this funding is going to come to our facility. It’s not designated to come to free clinics-it’s going to hospitals and medical groups and FUHC clinics.”

So Gerber’s work providing healthcare to the uninsured will continue.

“Even if this passes there’s still going to be a large gap of people that are still gonna need help.”

Drawing a Picture of Immigration Detention

CHICAGO, Ill. — Time seemed endless for Luis León Ortega, who spent nearly seven months in various Illinois detention centers after being caught by immigration officials and scheduled for deportation hearings.

Leon The shadowy world of immigration detention has been in the spotlight lately with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials being forced to make public a series of reports about conditions at numerous detention centers throughout the country. The reports tell the stories.

Luis León Ortega has the pictures. “I used to draw to pass the time,” says León, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico. “There was a Hispanic guard who always had pencils, so I asked her to lend me one and she did.”

León’s drawings are simple, yet provocative. One traces the very symbols often used to highlight this country’s greatest attributes: an august bald eagle, the prominent Statue of Liberty, a bold Sears Tower, the nation’s stately capitol dome.

But these images are ominously juxtaposed against a symbolic wall — the U.S.-Mexican border wall — that twists into a serpent bearing its sharp jaws, mouth wide open and ready to strike. In the drawing the serpent is poised to devour a man trapped in its mouth, presumably the artist.

Images of Stability

Immigration Detention Sketch There are 35 sketches in all. Some of them depict innocent childhood subjects like Disney characters, a dog with a Chicago White Sox baseball cap. Others are more conceptual, like the one depicting a tree whose vine-like branches covered in spines twist around a heart – a common image in Mexican culture that could either reflect a loss of faith in God, or suffering of the heart. There is also the famous crime-fighter Batman – one of his son’s favorite drawings — and an eerily simple depiction of his own isolation in jail cell number 115.

To add a bit of color to his drawings, León purchased Kool-Aid packets and mixed in a little water.

Six Months, Five Transfers

León’s journey through the murky world of U.S. immigration detention centers began on a normal Chicago winter day, back in February 2008. He was pulled over by police and charged with driving without a valid driver’s license. Authorities quickly discovered his undocumented status, and he would spend the next 30 weeks rotating between five different Illinois correctional centers. He only remembers the names of two – the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility and the Pontiac Correctional Center.

Every day, officers would try to get him to sign a voluntary deportation order.

“The first thing they do when you go to breakfast is try to convince you to sign your deportation papers. They did this every single day,” León recalls.

“We weren’t allowed to have anything in our cells. Masked guards armed with large, rubber-bullet guns would search our cells. They swarmed in as if they were the SWAT team. If they found even a packet of sugar, we were confined to our cells for 15 consecutive days,” he says.

His cell was just large enough for two beds, a shared toilet and a sink.

During meals, detainees were forbidden from speaking, so León would look forward to the little time he could talk on the telephone with his wife and children. But even that was complicated, as phone calls were limited to 20 minutes each day and phone cards were costly. A $20 card yielded only three calls.

“Once they told me a lawyer was coming to meet with us. But there wasn’t enough time. There was only one lawyer for 300 people. He managed to speak with only 10 people, and I wasn’t one of them.”

If access to legal help was nearly impossible, so too was León’s ability to turn to religion for comfort. In order to visit the chapel, detainees had to add their names to a list two or three days in advance. They were forbidden from having religious items in their cells, except for a Bible. A prayer card sent by his wife was intercepted and confiscated. The chaplains who did visit detainees spoke only English.

“Once a week they would allow us to see our families for 30 minutes. But we didn’t get to see them in person. We had to look at each other projected on a screen and we had to speak to each other on a telephone. I would go to a room where the telephone was, and my family would be in another room below me,” León said.

After six months, he was released on bond. The six-foot-tall, 43-year-old had lost a significant amount of weight. Pictures of León before his arrest show a much heavier and healthier man. Today, his hands sweat when he recalls those months spent behind bars, where he was isolated from his wife and two children who lived at the family’s Southside Chicago home.

Authorities have begun the deportation process against León. His two U.S.-born children wonder if they’ll have to live in a country they know little about, or face living without a father at home. León’s next hearing isn’t until 2011, perhaps enough time, he hopes, for something to be done by President Barack Obama, who as a candidate promised swift immigration reform.

In the meantime, León holds down a job and provides for his family by working six days a week at a local supermarket.

Pulling Back the Veil

For years, ICE officials fought to keep the treatment of immigration detainees a secret. Last month, a three-year legal battle ended with an order for ICE officials to make public a series of reports that documented inspections at numerous detention centers throughout the country. On August 6, ICE Director John Morton announced that one center, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, which held up to 400 detainees, would no longer be used for detaining families.

The reports, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits brought by rights groups, confirm many of León’s allegations of ill treatment at the hands of authorities.

In Illinois, a report by delegates from the American Bar Association, who visited the DuPage County Jail in 2003 and the McHenry County Correctional Facility in 2006 (one of the centers where León was held), found that detainees could not speak to legal assistants without an attorney present; could not see a doctor without a judge’s order; were denied dental care; and in at least one incident suffered physical abuse. The report also confirmed León’s allegation that detainees were unable to freely practice their religion.

Mary Meg McCarthy, director of the National Immigration Justice Center – one of the groups that successfully sued ICE for public access to documents describing detainee conditions — says she is happy the documents were finally made public. But she recognizes that many conditions detainees face remain unchanged.

“When the telephones don’t work properly and visiting time is strictly limited, the individual rights of detainees continue to be violated,” McCarthy says.

According to Gail Montenegro, regional spokesperson for ICE in Chicago, in 2007 ICE contracted the private companies Creative Corrections and the Nakamoto Group to inspect the centers where detainees were held.

Creative Corrections issued reports annually through June 2009 before being replaced by another company, MGT of America. According to Montenegro, Nakamoto continues functioning as an “on-site” monitor of conditions to guarantee that detainees’ rights are not violated.

ICE stopped sending detainees to DuPage County Jail in August 2004, but ICE officials say the decision was unrelated to the 2003 inspection by the American Bar Association delegation.

In a statement, Montenegro wrote that ICE officials learned of the attorneys’ delegation report on McHenry County Jail in early 2007 and quickly began addressing the report’s criticisms of detainee treatment.

“(McHenry County Jail) currently complies with ICE detention standards and was recently rated ‘Good’ by Creative Corrections in its most recent 2008 annual inspection,” Montenegro wrote.

One key issue left unresolved, however, is whether Congress and the Obama administration are willing to pass laws that protect detainees’ rights. Advocacy groups representing former detainees are lobbying for these laws, and at least two bills are under discussion in Senate committees.

But Homeland Security authorities acknowledged that a complete overhaul of the U.S. immigration detention system could take years. In the meantime, tens of thousand of undocumented immigrants remain in detention, their fates as uncertain as León’s.

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This article originally appeared on La Raza and New America Media.

A letter to immigrants past and present

“I am searching for words that do not betray me.”

There was a time when television was enjoyable.  Now announcer words infuriate me; as such I watch it less because I told myself I would never be that one member of the family who was always yelling at the people inside the show. Yet even as screen sits silent, the words still echo inside eardrums:

“They are taking our jobs….”

My father was born in 1936 in Wyoming to my grandparents after they crossed. He had asthma, so he had difficulty filling the 30-pound sack wrapped around his waist with potatoes that brought in nickels for the family. In the evenings, he would pass the time with his siblings chasing the trucks that sprayed DDT on the fields. He was five. Pesticides are a known cause of cancer and birth defects. Fifty-five years forward, two of my grandfather’s daughters would die from cancer. I am grateful my father is still living.

“But they are criminals…..”

The other morning my phone rang earlier than normal. It was a colleague who taught at a Middle School in Watts. His voice strained, he said simply: one of my students need’s help; immigration raided her home last night and took away her mother for not having papers. She is left alone and does not know where to go or where they took her mom. Can you offer any help?

An eleven-year-old little girl with caramel colored skin and eyes almond shaped now faces life inside a foster system because under the cover of shadows, men with badges stole her mother. I often wish that theft of one’s childhood were a crime.

“Remember this is OUR country”

There are days where my skin pretends to be of another nationality, but my tongue betrays me. English is the only language it speaks. However my soul is tri-lingual, dancing across dialects: local, global and spiritual.  It sings hymns that remind me borders are imaginary lines reinforced with real weaponry; my heart carves poems that challenge an economy of fear that entire banking systems are built upon.

In arguments, I am able to offer an array of data that counters every common misconception of immigrants in the public realm. Remind individuals that an undocumented immigrant pays a higher percentage of their taxes than the average citizen, is less likely to commit a crime, or use illegal substances than the average citizen. FBI research shows that the highest amount of drug abuse happens in affluent communities and so forth.

Yet this is not the dialogue I want to build upon. One that reduces immigration to numbers and statistics, economics and self-interest, rather than the sweat, flesh, blood, and tears that comprise the lives of those who live a human reality complicated by immigration policies, whether they are documented or not.  I was raised to speak with people, not about them - and reminded to do otherwise is rude.

The phrase “this is ours” implies  a separate class of people who must be told “this is not yours.” If “ours” is a collective ownership of a land and an idea that is limited in access, I ask those who use such phrases how they obtained ownership of said idea or land: was it purchased, inherited, passed on? When did Earth sign your deed of purchase? I know my family’s experience, have ancestors who played drums that  echoed across deserts before America was even imagined, when India was a dream in an explorer’s hat. Look closely at your deed of ownership,  chances are it was signed with our blood. I will write love poems that transcends legal limitations, I will decolonize my imagination and language, speak new words that do not betray me. I will remind myself, I am human, and recite it like mantra.

Life. Love. Language. Land
These are all the things ever stolen from us. They are everything we will reclaim.

How two illegal voyages led to my American Dream

My mom was 4-years-old when she first dreamed about going to the United States. Sitting in front of the church in the impoverished village she grew up in, called Paraiso de Osorio in El Salvador, she watched a newsreel of President John F. Kennedy giving a speech, with the American flag waving in the background. Watching those images, she said to herself that the United States was where she wanted to go.

She was born in 1954 and grew up in a small village where there were dirt roads, no hospitals, fire or police stations, and no water or electricity. My mom rarely wore shoes. There were also seven other children in the family, making it more difficult to have aspirations in a life filled with destitution.

My dad was also influenced and inspired by Kennedy. He used to get care packages to feed children, which the U.S. sent through a program started by Kennedy. My dad was born in 1950 in a city called Santo Tomas, where he lived in a tin-roof house and showered with cold water in the outhouse. Working at age 17 to provide for his mother and sister, my dad had a strong work ethic and desire to leave his country.

Kennedy’s politics also had an impact on my dad, who grew as the radical and revolutionary type in the Central American country. But his love for the political climate in the war-torn country – which eventually erupted into a violent 12-year civil war – didn’t make him stay. He needed money to survive and he wasn’t finding it there.

Separately, my parents left the country in 1978 and began their illegal voyages, walking through mountains, dirt and mud to cramp into vans and big rigs with other immigrants headed on the same path. They made their way to the City of Angels.

For 11 days, my mom traveled through Guatemala, Mexico and into the United States. She paid three smugglers working together $900 to take her from El Salvador to L.A. My mom and 21 other immigrants walked from Tijuana to San Diego for 10 hours. Struggling to walk through the hills and mountains, several immigrants collapsed from exhaustion. After making it to San Diego, there was still the trip to Los Angeles. She and 80 others cramped into a hot and humid big rig. People fainted and almost suffocated. However, when the truck reached San Clemente, immigration officials stopped it for 25 minutes. They knocked on the truck and asked if anyone was there. The immigrants remained silent.

My mom arrived to a parking lot in downtown L.A. She shared an apartment with six other women. There are only two options for immigrants: working in a factory or housekeeping. But at a factory she would have been easily caught and it paid very little. She became a housekeeper for wealthy families, something she still does.

Throughout my dad’s trip, he met men who played folk songs to keep them positive about their journey to America. Arriving to Tijuana, he found a smuggler and crossed rivers and mountains into San Diego. He arrived to the same apartment my mom lived in. Landing his first job as a brick layer, he made $2.50 an hour, which was substantially more than what he used to make. However, the boss didn’t find his work satisfactory and started yelling at him: “Get out of here you f-ing Mexican!” Starting in 1979, there were random raids in Hispanic-dominated areas. My dad recalls one weekend of fun that ended in his deportation. There was a party in the apartment, and my dad, mom and aunt were sitting outside on the apartment steps. An immigration van came and they ran. My dad was hit in the head, dragged off and deported. He came back a couple of months later and found a job as a mold-maker in a factory where he still works after 30 years.

They became naturalized citizens in 1996. Gaining legality, they were able to cast their first votes for President Bill Clinton.

Looking at how my parents desperately wanted to leave their third-world country, I can’t blame them or others like them from wanting to come to America, legally or not. Should they come here legally? Yes, but how easy and possible is that? It can take years. I have a half-sister from El Salvador who has been waiting over 10 years just to get a Visa. With such animosity and anti-immigrant sentiment directed towards Hispanics, it’s a shame that we still blame a people who come for survival, the way past immigrants of different cultures and races did. In my case, my parents never went on welfare or asked for handouts, and still managed to own a home. My parents worked to own their home. They’re illegal journey made me who I am today and made what I’ve accomplished possible. I have an education and am a graduate thanks to them. Luckily I’ve surpassed any poverty my parents faced as children. We’re not the stereotype or the villains in this country like we’re made out to be. But because I’m “brown,” that’s the stigma placed on me. I know what it is to be brown, but maybe not to the extent of others who probably face more and much worse than I ever have. I recently heard of a proposed California ballot initiative for next year’s June election that would require parents to prove U.S. citizenship or legal residency to receive their child’s birth certificate. If they can’t, they would have to pay for a certificate acknowledging the child’s “Birth to a Foreign Parent.” Does that mean that because my parents weren’t lawfully here when I was born I wouldn’t be a considered a U.S. citizen? Does that mean future generations won’t get that chance? Through my parents experience, I’ve developed the empathy and sympathy to understand their plights. And such a measure is unfortunate, especially in a country that supposedly embraces differences and encourages economic prosperity.

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Editor’s Note: Minority Dreams asked its readers and writers to submit personal immigration stories, explain why it matters and how it has shaped them individually. Juliette Funes recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton and is interning at the LA Times Calender Desk.

Building Ourselves in America

As far back as I can remember, my family’s life has stretched across two parts of the world: America and the Middle East. We tore our hearts in two and buried them on opposite ends of the globe, traveling between them as we chased after a higher cause my dad labeled i’mar al-ard. Although the phrase doesn’t translate very well in English, it means something like “building the world,” and was my dad’s way of dedicating his life to doing something – anything – that would leave a positive impact on this planet he called home.

As he taught us later, building the world was a simple cycle in which we learned as much as humanly possible about the world we were in, while simultaneously working to make that world a better place. It was a wonderfully vague life plan that could adapt to any dream, take root in any soil. It would propel us around the globe, where we would meet all colors of people, and would (at least I hope) make us quite colorful as well. But my dad would never have dreamed, as he lay on his balcony in Syria watching the sky like a teenage Ché Guevara, that it would take him and his future family to America.

In preparation for his bit of building the world, my father spent his youth chasing knowledge the way he used to chase soccer balls in the alleys of Damascus. From the clutches of his family he ran to college in neighboring Halab. From a war that rained bombs in Halab he ran to Saudi Arabia to explore the uncharted territories of computer science. When machines didn’t satisfy his curiosity about the world, he set his sights on a place across the globe that was said to have enough libraries to satiate even Averroes. He and his wife packed all of their belongings in two suitcases, grabbed their two infants and jumped across a few continents and an ocean before landing in the middle of Chicago. They had nothing but those two suitcases, three thousand dollars in their wallets, and countless prayers to God – who they called by His Arabic name, Allah – that things would turn out alright.

My parents, when they set out, had no idea what was waiting for them in the country that was home to Hollywood and the White House. They would have been shocked to hear that they were going to stay there for over a decade, rather than the five years they had envisioned. They couldn’t foresee the Muslim communities that would take them in as long-lost cousins, my mom’s discovery of teaching and addiction to Burger King, my dad’s multiple lives as student, car dealer and activist, or their children’s mastery of English at the expense of the language of the Quran.

They didn’t know that a few years later they would make another life-changing trip, this time halfway across the continent, after my dad discovered an unmatchable political science program and a liberal Islamic Center in Los Angeles.  They would fall in love with the San Fernando Valley, which eased the pain of homesickness with of all the Muslims it held in its lap and with its mountains, sisters of the mountains that encircled Damascus. I only understood what they were talking about years later when I drove through Damascus for the first time, and felt a sudden pang for the LA home I’d left when I was fifteen.

By the end of my freshman year of high school, we had decided to move to the Middle East, this time to Dubai. With two master’s degrees and a PhD under his belt, my dad felt that the time for his formal education was over. It was now to be the era of building. Building bridges between the two parts of the globe dearest to him. And as for us kids, it was time for us to formally meet the other half of our hearts – the annual summer trips we’d taken back to the Middle East were not enough to make us Middle Easterners. So we carted ourselves off to Dubai, not knowing whether to laugh or cry the whole way there.

Years later in the Middle East, my family is still under the spell of i’mar al-ard: that endless cycle of learning and working. And we’re still torn between our two halves. My dad makes trips back to the U.S. once or twice a year, my brother and I are doing our undergrad at a local American university with our eyes on New York for work and grad school, and my mom is a lover of all things organic in the best tradition of California culture.

But while we’re each busy trying to build our own world, it’s important to stop and recognize what built us. Among the many forces in our lives, America had no small role in helping us with our i’mar al-nafs, our “building the self.” It is the privileges, challenges and pleasures of American life that made us who we are today. And from the many lessons America taught us, perhaps the most important one is this: new worlds can always be created from those already existing. It’s a lesson we hold tight to, no matter what part of this Earth we find ourselves in.

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Editor’s Note: Minority Dreams asked its readers and writers to submit personal immigration stories, explain why it matters and how it has shaped them individually. Nour Merza is a regular contributor at Minority Dreams and keeps a blog at Crisscrossing Borders.

U.S. Citizens Detained in Immigration Raids

The son of a WWII veteran, La Puente resident Frank Ponce de Leon was held in a San Diego immigration detention center for three months last year. He insisted he was a United States citizen all the while facing the possibility of being deported.

“I kept telling them I was a citizen, but they wouldn’t believe me,” he said. “Little did I know that this would happen to me and that I would be sent to an INS detention center.”

Ponce de Leon, 47, was born in Mexico in 1961 and moved to California in 1977. Despite being born abroad to an American parent, he automatically acquired U.S. citizenship by law.

However, he never obtained a Certificate of Citizenship, which would have officially proven he was a citizen at birth.

In 2007, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants were detained by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with 30,000 held in detention centers daily.

Neither agencies have data on how many U.S. citizens have been deported or detained on suspicion of being non-citizens.

However, Ponce de Leon is just one of thousands of citizens who have been rounded up and sent to immigration centers with their status in question, according to Jacqueline Stevens, associate professor of Law and Society at UC Santa Barbara.

Stevens claims ICE has been unlawfully detaining U.S. citizens after researching and compiling information since 2008 from government officials, immigration attorneys, criminal public defense attorneys and intake interviews with detainees.

Working with an Arizona nonprofit legal service organization called the Florence Immigrant and Refugees Rights Project, she says one percent of their more than 2,000 cases are for detainees who have potential claims to U.S. citizenship.

“It happens one percent of the time but that’s still thousands of cases,” Stevens said. “In absolute numbers, it’s intolerably too frequent.”

In reviewing the organization’s cases, Stevens claims to have seen enough files of citizens in Arizona detention centers to estimate that since 2004, between 3,500 and 10,000 citizens nationwide have been detained.

But ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said, “ICE only processes individuals for removal when all the available facts indicate that the individual is an alien. We have no interest in deporting U.S. citizens.”

Committed to enforcing the law fairly, ICE thoroughly investigates all claims, she said.

“After careful questioning, if somebody is erroneously detained they’re immediately released,” Haley said.

However, Ponce de Leon’s release wasn’t as immediate.

Two months before being released from jail for an aggravated felony, he was sent to the Otay Detention Facility where he would spend the next three months trying to prove his citizenship.

“I was representing myself and getting slammed down in court,” he said. “The judge didn’t give me the light of day.”

Since detainees are not provided legal representation, the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project in San Diego offered him pro bono legal services.

“A significant number of people go through the immigration process without a lawyer,” Attorney Allegra McLeod said. “Without a lawyer it can be very hard to establish your rights under the law even if you are a U.S. citizen.”

Trying to Prove Citizenship

But there was sound evidence of his citizenship, including his father’s birth certificate, military service showing the family’s allegiance to the U.S. and a marriage certificate showing he was in the U.S. 10 years prior to Ponce de Leon’s birth, she said.

There was also the fact that his older brother, Fernando, had the same problem the year before, McLeod said. His case was terminated when the court found out he was a U.S. citizen, she said.

Despite the claim and evidence being identical to Fernando’s, Ponce de Leon was held longer, costing U.S. tax payers $90 a day, McLeod said.

Others who have gone through similar circumstances haven’t come forward because they don’t know who to trust, Stevens said.

“The government has unlawfully imprisoned them and … treated them in a way that’s fundamentally unfair,” she said

Attorney Veronica Villegas represented a West Covina resident named Robert, who was deported twice by ICE to Tijuana.

Robert was born in Mexico in 1970 and was orphaned with his five siblings after his parents were killed, she said.

After being adopted in 1983 by his legal resident aunt and his U.S. citizen uncle from Baldwin Park, Robert became a legal permanent resident.

“The minute he became a resident he automatically became a citizen,” Villegas said.

After serving a 16-month jail sentence, Robert was sent to El Centro Detention Facility in San Diego where he spent a year in detention. He was deported to Tijuana as a criminal alien.

He went back to California the next day, but was caught and deported to Tijuana again, Villegas said. In attempting to get back to the United States, Robert was caught by border agents who accused him of falsely claiming citizenship. He served three years in federal prison.

“Robert had a legitimate claim to citizenship,” Villegas said. “The law automatically made him a citizen but ICE is not going to verify that.”

It’s up to the detainees to prove their status, she said.

“They set it up in a way that’s nobody’s responsibility but yours and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re screwed,” she said.

He was released from a San Pedro detention facility, where he was told “Congratulations, you’ve been a citizen since 1983,” Villegas said.

Although the claim to U.S. citizenship is there, it’s difficult to prove, especially when detainees can’t obtain the documents proving their citizenship, Sheila Neville, Senior Attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles said.

Immigration officials “should work with that person and the family to figure out what is going on,” she said.

David Hernandez, an assistant professor of Chicano and Chicana Studies at UCLA, has studied the detention of immigrants and attributes the detention of citizens and potential aliens to racial profiling.

”If people are using racial profiling to capture immigrants, citizens are sure to get detained,” he said. “When you rely on racial profiling and picking up whoever is next to the person that you’re trying to arrest  that’s going to cause terrible mistakes.”

Ponce de Leon was released from the detention center Dec. 31, 2008 and has applied for his Certificate of Citizenship.

However, he isn’t in the clear yet.

“Until he has his Certificate of Citizenship in hand, which can take a long time, the problem hasn’t yet been solved,” Mcleod said. “He could find himself back in the same situation.”

Still, Ponce de Leon is hopeful.

“Little by little, I look up at God and know that everything will be all right,” he said. “Eventually I’ll get my break.”

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Credit: Juliette Funes will be graduating from Cal State Fullerton in May with a B.A. in Communication - Print journalism. This summer she has an internship at the L.A. Times writing for the Calendar Section. She likes writing about minority, social and women’s issues and eventually would like to focus her writing on immigration.

Immigration Reform to Help Economic Recovery?

The White House reaffirmed President Obama’s commitment to working on immigration reform during his first year as president. While Obama has made clear that fixing the economy is his number one priority, a summary of recent research released by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) shows that fixing the broken immigration system could bring us one step closer to economic recovery.

As right-wing pundits falsely claim that immigration reform would cost the American public “billions,” available research suggests that — had the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 passed — it would have generated a much needed $66 billion in new revenue during 2007 to 2016 from income and payroll taxes, as well as various administrative fees. According to Dan Siciliano, associate dean at Stanford University, “We know, from experience and analysis, that a legalization program helps grow the economy. Being undocumented causes immigrants not to invest in themselves, in their community, or their skills. Enfranchised consumers who are part of the above ground economy are more invested consumers. They are more likely to invest extra time, money, and effort into their children and themselves.”

In fact, according to Giovanni Peri, associate professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, immigrants don’t even compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to have different levels of education and to work in different occupations. In contrast to what Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs might be telling their audiences, immigrants usually “complement” the native-born workforce — which increases the productivity, and therefore the wages, of the native-born.

Comprehensive immigration reform would also eliminate the “trap door” that artificially suppresses wages and would allow workers to compete fairly for the first time. Cristina Jiménez, an immigration policy consultant at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy has pointed out that “consigning undocumented workers to a precarious existence undermines all who aspire to a middle-class standard of living.” In a recent post on the Hill’s Congress Blog, Jeanne Butterfield, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, explained:

“Moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform will ensure that all workers are here legally, will punish unscrupulous employers who undercut their honest competitors, and will restore integrity to the labor market. Labor leader Esther Lopez (United Food and Commercial Workers Union) confirmed: ‘Comprehensive immigration reform is the only way we can level the playing field for all workers. By bringing people out of the shadows and by having legalization be part of a broader immigration reform, we can create an immigration system that works for the American worker. We can’t, in this economy, leave 12 million undocumented workers out in the shadows.’”

David Dyssegaard Kallick, senior fellow at the Fiscal Policy Institute, added, “People don’t just vanish and imagine what would be involved in driving out 12 million undocumented immigrants. Mass deportation isn’t realistic. What is realistic is making sure immigrants work in the above-ground economy. Immigration reform isn’t about being pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant — it’s about having an immigration system that functions and addresses what I think everyone recognizes as a broken system.”

While a policy designed to deport approximately 10 million undocumented immigrants would cost at least $206 billion over five years, or $41.2 billion annually; immigration reform would pay for itself in the form of increased wages, buying-power, and tax contributions that would benefit all working men and women.

(This post originally appeared on New America Media on April 23.)

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Credit: Andrea Nill is communications and research associate at the Immigration Policy Center, a division of American Immigration Law Foundation. This post appeared in IMMIGRATION MATTERS, which regularly features the views of immigration experts and advocates.

US immigration policy more complex than white and blue

Let me begin by saying that there are two, distinct classes of jobs in the United State (or broadly, the West): “blue collar” labor jobs and “white collar” professional jobs. It is a common fallacy in argument for advocates on both sides to assume the term “job” is merely one type of work.

Obama’s administration is working towards legalizing the status of currently-unauthorized immigrants in the United States. I cannot stress enough that these immigrants are not white-collar workers; they are a majority blue-collar workers. This means the jobs they presently work are low-skill and low-paying. The Republican argument that illegal immigrants are taking away from American jobs in light of the current economic conditions, is a weak one. Americans losing their jobs today are primarily semi or full professionals - including venture capitalists booted from Wall Street. Due to the obvious gap in job qualifications, it is no wonder unemployed Americans are not taking to the streets protesting the shifts of illegal immigrants working as janitors, restaurant bussers, construction workers and the like.  We would much rather take state unemployment benefits and keep searching for a position that best matches our qualifications than to resort to blue-collar work.

It is also very important to understand the infrastructure of the American economy, the lifestyle habits of the West and how the two affect each other. Western nations, including the United States, tend to have smaller family sizes due to work schedules and other socio-economic restraints. This may seem like a menial fact, but in fact makes a great impact on our economy. The sheer size of the American economy demands for a large workforce. Given that American families do not produce enough children to off-set the demand of their economy, the United States needs immigrants to support the economic infrastructure.

There is also the questionable history of the US foreign policy that has resulted in instability and difficult living conditions in other countries. This includes unfair trading practices such as protectionism that is resulting in poverty abroad and American demand for drugs such as cocaine that continue to fuel drug wars in countries such as Colombia and Mexico. A majority of illegal immigrants are simply attempting to escape these conditions and better the lives of their families. Wouldn’t anyone? I am not, however, condoning illegal immigration into any state. We should respect the sovereignty of other states, inclusive of their laws of governance. If we are to live within a state, we must abide by its laws alongside its citizenry. But given the complexity of the issue of immigration and America’s dependence on it to sustain her own socio-economic identity, simply expelling illegal immigrants will not only negatively impact our own economy but our crucial ties with the international community.

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Credit: Maha Kamal graduated with her B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is currently preparing for her post-graduate studies in international law, business and diplomacy. Maha also enjoys learning new languages, painting and web design in her free time. You may reach her at maha.kamal@colorado.edu.

Crickets Louder Than Obama as Aunt Faces Deportation

(This post originally appeared on WireTap Magazine)

I don’t wanna jump on the Barack bashing bandwagon, the trend since progressive activists stopped worrying about McCain winning and began scrambling back to the über-Left, and especially since I voted for the man (the personal becomes political when it comes to electing My First Black President), but President Obama’s attitude as his Kenyan aunt, Zeituni Onyango, faces mounting pressure for her deportation threatens my hope for just immigration reform happening under his administration.

Just two weeks ago, the Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) filed a request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the cold agency known as ICE) calling for Ms. Onyango’s arrest for violating deportation orders and demanding the President’s support on the matter. President Obama did not respond to their call but his silence in light of comments made at the end of last year about the case shows that he neither feels passionately about immigration reform nor does he feel its urgency. In an interview with Katie Couric, the Presidential hopeful stated about his dear “Auntie Zeituni,” as he referred to her in his memoir:

“If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We’re a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn’t lessen my concern for her, I haven’t been able to be in touch with her. But I’m a strong believer you have to obey the law.”

Laws need to be obeyed, huh? What about the fact that his Auntie Zeituni came here seeking asylum because Kenya’s politicians couldn’t obey their own laws, and as a result civil war broke out, forcing her to immigrate to the US?

And as President, and inheritor of Big Brother, he should be able to find her now, even if perhaps, he somehow couldn’t get a hold of her then. If the distance allows him to turn a blind eye, what does that mean for the thousands of immigrants who are being rounded up by ICE, waiting in detention centers or at home with ankle bracelets? And who, just like Ms. Onyango, need his help in the form of immediate immigration reform?

I don’t want to turn my back on My First Black President, but having solidarity with him means he needs to have solidarity with me and my community of immigrant people of color, and he could start by taking an Air Force One flight to Auntie Zetuni’s house in the projects of South Boston and find out what the hell is going on.

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Credit: Beatriz Herrera, a native of New York City and a lead organizer with the Women Workers Project at People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a multiracial grassroots organization based in San Francisco.

Fasting for Change

More than one hundred people have been fasting to draw attention to immigration reform and to encourage democratic participation among Latino and new American voters at the heart of downtown Los Angeles from October 15 through Election Day.

A cluster of tents sit on Placita Olvera Street, the center of once Mexican-ruled Los Angeles and the birthplace of the city. Activists have sworn off food for three weeks.

They have been aided by volunteers who seek to register voters, speak against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on work sites and deportations, which they condemned as unjust treatment.

The activists are a diverse set of committed people, unified by their experience and by their goal of non-violent social change. Some are committed to the entire 21-day fast, others for shorter spans.

From Mahatma Gandhi to Cesar Chavez, many people have fasted to bring change in the past.

“It represents a sacrifice,” said Alex Hernandez, a hirsute faster on his eighth day without food. “[It is] a sense of people putting themselves, their health in danger. A sacrifice so that people can pay attention to what is being done.”

He chose to participate because there is injustice being done to immigrants, he said.

“To fight against the separation of families, the terrorizing of the communities and the violation of civil rights via deportations and mass raids, that is the reason why I am here,” he said.

The participants are active in the encampment; playing cards and engaging the constant stream of visitors from Union Station across the street between meetings. During these meetings, the agenda is discussed and the obvious question of each faster’s health is addressed.

Many have bloodshot eyes as insomnia also came as part of the ordeal. Some slump in their chairs while they speak with noticeable fatigue. But the smiles have not yet faded from their faces.

To boost morale, Ana Rosa Rizo, a councilwoman with the city of Maywood, brought marigolds to the campers. She laid them at the entrance of the tents and around the site to bring cheer to the hungry activists.

The gold flowers are used in traditional Mexican Day of the Dead decorations, a holiday held two days before this year’s Presidential Elections.

Rizo participated in the fast for the first four days then took on a supportive role with the protest organizers.

“Though people are physically weakened, spiritually they are strong,” she said of the fasters.

Rizo realized that the battle is emotional.

“All the divisions that institutions try to instill within the people [are] false,” Rizo said. “We’re all sisters and brothers. This is not just a fight of the brain, it’s a fight for people’s hearts and spirits.”

Immigrants are the backbone of the U.S. economy but they are often used as scapegoats, she said.

It remains difficult to achieve legal immigrant status in the U.S. since the immigration reform bill of 2007 failed.

Activist Margaret Johnson believed the system needs fixing.

Slumping from fatigue in her chair with 15 days of fasting under her belt, Johnson said she saw the flawed system up close as a paralegal helping undocumented immigrants get asylum.

“Just seeing the real broken, dehumanizing system that we have and how it’s practically impossible to get immigrant status was painfully eye-opening,” Johnson said with a determined smile.

Her faith as a Catholic has helped her with the cause.

“I need to stand with people who are suffering,” she said.

Secular groups have also come to sympathize with the fasters and the plight of the immigrant community.

The city of Maywood passed a resolution in support of the “Fast For our Future” campaign and council members are urging other cities to pass the same symbolic gesture of support, Councilwoman Rizo said.

To learn more about the movement, the activists suggested fastforourfuture.com. The participants will break fast on Wednesday, Nov. 5.

Credit: Rob Weaver

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