Young Activist Faces Deportation in Florida
Editor's note: This blog originally appeared in WireTap.
Distressing news out of Florida.
Last week, ICE officials in Broward County detained 24-year-old undocumented community organizer Andrea Huerfano after committing the criminal act of trying to pay a traffic ticket.
Authorities could deport her as soon as Tuesday.
(Photo: Huerfano, far left, at Politicorps) Huerfano is a graduate of Florida State University, where she majored in international relations and was active in student organizing efforts to pass the Dream Act.
After graduation, she went to Portland, OR to participate in PolitiCorps, a political leadership training institute. During her fellowship, she spearheaded efforts to inform low-income voters on criminal justice issues. Later, she was active in get-out-the-vote efforts in Ohio during the presidential election.
Huerfano has been in the states since 2001, after she and her family fled violence in their native Colombia. They fled using a valid visa, and tried for several years to seek political asylum. However, a Florida judge with a notoriously high rate of rejecting asylum claims denied the family's request after Huerfano's father died of liver cancer and the family could no longer prove a well-founded fear of persecution.
If deported, Huerfano wouldn't be eligible to return to the states for 10 years. Having lived most of her life in the U.S., friends say that she has no close family left in Colombia.
Advocates, including organizers from the Bus Project and Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER), are pushing for deferred action to allow Huerfano to stay in the U.S. while Congress continues its work on Dream Act legislation, which could provide a path toward legalization for thousands of undocumented students.
While students in Wisconsin were successful in pushing a state-based iteration of the Dream Act last spring, activists are still attempting to pass a federal version.
According to the latest census data, there are about 2.5 million (PDF) undocumented youth under 18 living in the U.S. Roughly 65,000 undocumented youth who have lived in the United States for five years or longer graduate from high school each year. But only 20 percent (PDF) of undocumented students who have lived in the U.S. for five years or longer enroll in post-secondary education.
For activists familiar with Huerfano's political work, these statistics provide important context for her academic achievements.
"Andrea deserves a chance to achieve her American dream," says Caitlin Baggott, director of PolitiCorps, in a press release issued over the weekend.
Take Action:
Activists are also calling for folks to sign a petition and put in calls to ICE offices in Washington, D.C. and Florida to request Huerfano's release:
http://immigration.change.org/actions/view/stop_andreas_deportation
For more information about the actions they are pursuing and details of Huerfano's case, please contact Mollie Ruskin at 503.928.2988, mollieru@gmail.com or Caitlin Baggott 503.804.7644, caitlin.baggott@gmail.com.
UPDATE: After several days of intense networking, letter writing and hundreds of phone calls to ICE, authorities have just announced that Andrea Huerfano will be released from detention this afternoon.
She will have six months to assemble her case.
Organizers are in the process of planning next steps.
Distressing news out of Florida.
Last week, ICE officials in Broward County detained 24-year-old undocumented community organizer Andrea Huerfano after committing the criminal act of trying to pay a traffic ticket.
Authorities could deport her as soon as Tuesday.
(Photo: Huerfano, far left, at Politicorps) Huerfano is a graduate of Florida State University, where she majored in international relations and was active in student organizing efforts to pass the Dream Act.After graduation, she went to Portland, OR to participate in PolitiCorps, a political leadership training institute. During her fellowship, she spearheaded efforts to inform low-income voters on criminal justice issues. Later, she was active in get-out-the-vote efforts in Ohio during the presidential election.
Huerfano has been in the states since 2001, after she and her family fled violence in their native Colombia. They fled using a valid visa, and tried for several years to seek political asylum. However, a Florida judge with a notoriously high rate of rejecting asylum claims denied the family's request after Huerfano's father died of liver cancer and the family could no longer prove a well-founded fear of persecution.
If deported, Huerfano wouldn't be eligible to return to the states for 10 years. Having lived most of her life in the U.S., friends say that she has no close family left in Colombia.
Advocates, including organizers from the Bus Project and Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER), are pushing for deferred action to allow Huerfano to stay in the U.S. while Congress continues its work on Dream Act legislation, which could provide a path toward legalization for thousands of undocumented students.
While students in Wisconsin were successful in pushing a state-based iteration of the Dream Act last spring, activists are still attempting to pass a federal version.
According to the latest census data, there are about 2.5 million (PDF) undocumented youth under 18 living in the U.S. Roughly 65,000 undocumented youth who have lived in the United States for five years or longer graduate from high school each year. But only 20 percent (PDF) of undocumented students who have lived in the U.S. for five years or longer enroll in post-secondary education.
For activists familiar with Huerfano's political work, these statistics provide important context for her academic achievements.
"Andrea deserves a chance to achieve her American dream," says Caitlin Baggott, director of PolitiCorps, in a press release issued over the weekend.
Take Action:
Activists are also calling for folks to sign a petition and put in calls to ICE offices in Washington, D.C. and Florida to request Huerfano's release:
http://immigration.change.org/actions/view/stop_andreas_deportation
For more information about the actions they are pursuing and details of Huerfano's case, please contact Mollie Ruskin at 503.928.2988, mollieru@gmail.com or Caitlin Baggott 503.804.7644, caitlin.baggott@gmail.com.
UPDATE: After several days of intense networking, letter writing and hundreds of phone calls to ICE, authorities have just announced that Andrea Huerfano will be released from detention this afternoon.
She will have six months to assemble her case.
Organizers are in the process of planning next steps.
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