Star FL Student Free, Still to be Deported

Immigration Law

Posted Aug 10, 2007, 01:39 pm CST
By Martha Neil

Thanks to legislative lobbying by fellow teens, a star Miami student has been released from jail and expects to start college later this month in a local honors program.

However, this is only a temporary reprieve for Colombian-born Juan Gomez, 18, and his brother, Alex, 19, who still are scheduled for deportation this year as illegal immigrants, reports the Miami Herald. The two, who came to this country with their parents when they were toddlers, are now part of a national movement to change immigration laws to allow children who grew up in this country but are not citizens a pathway to legal residency.

The brothers' continued residency in the U.S., however, is far from certain: Although U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami), among others, is trying to help them find a legal way to stay, there is a national wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to contend with, says Art Estopiñán, her chief of staff. ''Folks are very upset with the issue of illegals residing in the United States,'' he tells the Herald, based on "national security concerns and other concerns.''

Earlier ABAJournal.com posts detailed the brothers' plight and subsequent efforts by some 1,500 friends and well-wishers to lobby federal and state legislators to try to change the law under which they are to be deported.

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Posted by WooWooWoo - 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 18 hours, 35 minutes ago

The brothers do not have a “plight”; the country has a plight—illegal immigration. At least this article used correct terminology in referring to these people as “illegal immigrants”. They are here illegally and should be deported. It is really not that complicated.
Posted by Enough with illegal immigration! - 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 18 hours, 7 minutes ago

It’s time we stopped overlooking the fact that these people are in fact, ILLEGAL. Everyone, even legal immigrants, has sad stories about being separated from family for reasons beyond their control. This is not a reason to simply gloss over the fact that they have perpetuated a crime for decades and now should be rewarded for it? That’s completely ridiculous and its time our government officials stood up for the LEGAL AMERICANS.
Posted by Person - 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 18 hours, 7 minutes ago

Would there be any interest in deporting these high-achieving young men if they were Australia-born, Canada-born or Sweden-born?
Posted by WooWooWoo - 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 17 hours, 30 minutes ago

Certainly, at least as to the Canadian born. The point is to allow people into the country who abide by the law and support the United States its goals and values. Based upon recent history, Canadians, by and large, do not meet the second criterion.
Posted by Kenya - 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 16 hours, 41 minutes ago

How can you commit a crime when you’re a toddler? These people have been here their entire lives and shouldn’t be punished for something that they had no control over.
Posted by John O'Rourke - 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 10 hours, 10 minutes ago

WooWooWoo must have gone to too many Cubs games. Kicking millions of people out the country not complicated? What about their kids, their employers, their landlords, their property, their investments. Sure, be hard hearted if you want with a few hundred or a few thousand deportations, but millions! Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. For various reasons, none of them bleeding heart issues, the law hasn’t been enforced for 20 years. It’s a messy situation, but hardly created solely by those who would suffer most from mass deportations.
Posted by Neal H. Paster - 1 year, 3 months, 5 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes ago

OK, I get it. We are going to throw two kids who are highly intelligent, otherwise law-abiding, students out of this country because their parents dragged them along when they came here more than a decade ago, ship them off to a country in the midst of a lethal civil war, a country they have never been to and whose culture is foreign to them, where they probably will have no chance of going to a decent school or of finding decent employment since they probably have no marketable skills at this time, and expect that 5 or 10 years from now we are going to be “shocked, absolutely shocked” to find that they have joined the rebels or drug smugglers and are killing our soldiers and DEA folks, and leaders or spokesmen for the rebels, hating America and convincing thousands of others to do the same. And, all to accomplish, . . . .uh, what? At the very least, they should be granted student visas to allow them to continue and complete their college education, and then, if it is still necessary to deport them, at least they will bring some knowledge and skills back to Colombia that might be used to help the people there in a way other than merely to lead or participate in the rebellion (of course, they may still decide that the rebel cause is the juster cause, but, at least they will do so with the added years of maturity and with an educational background that will allow them to make that decision based more on knowledge and rational thought than mere utter hatred for the USA. And, maybe, just maybe, instead of bad-mouthing us to their new friends and neighbors, they will tell them what a great country we are, the opportunity we allowed them to enjoy, etc.

But, no, I forgot, we need to punish these people to the full extent of the law because they are all criminals, you know, and we can’t be soft on crime, and they speak Spanish, which means soon us white folk will be overrun, and our “culture” (and what culture is the true “American” culture, anyway. Here in the southwest, California, and Florida, it is decidedly the Hispanic/Spanish and indigenous peoples culture that is the original culture here that was usurped at the point of a sword or barrel of a gun by the white Europeans who carpet-bagged these areas.
Posted by Neal H. Paster - 1 year, 3 months, 5 days, 7 hours, 22 minutes ago

Oh, by the way, did anyone note that the folks posting the anti-immigrant messages by and large do so under pseudonyms. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Posted by William J. Bates - 1 year, 3 months, 4 days, 12 hours, 41 minutes ago

They were not lawfully admitted into the country when they arrived and were illegal immigrants with their parents; their status has not changed. It should not be hard nor seen as improper to treat them as what they are and deport. Illegal then, illegal now.
Posted by Mark Smith - 1 year, 3 months, 4 days, 11 hours, 22 minutes ago

Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant from Mexico was finally deported. I am waiting for the Gomez family deportation come Sept 14 2007.

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