[ALBSA-Info] Tales from the INS crypt

[Kreshnik Bejko]

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From: "Kreshnik Bejko" <kbejko at hotmail.com>
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Subject: Tales from the INS crypt
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 18:51:13 GMT
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Taken from todays Wall St. JournalJune 22, 2000


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Undocumented Students Are Guaranteed
K-12 by Law, But College Isn't So Easy
By DANIEL GOLDEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


BARNSTABLE, Mass. -- Monique Silva's tangled odyssey through the American
education system began one day in 1988, when she showed up at an elementary
school in this Cape Cod resort. She was a cherubic eight-year-old from
Brazil, deaf and unable to communicate in any language. As she learned sign
language and began to read and write in English, she blossomed into a
stellar student and captain of her high-school track team. In 1999, she was
accepted at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

But Ms. Silva never enrolled. Instead, in a sweltering warehouse, she
presses 65 shirts an hour for $6.50 -- ten cents a shirt. A language barrier
divides her from her Brazilian co-workers. They don't know English or sign
language; she knows no Portuguese. When the boss has something to tell her,
he scribbles a brief note.


Asked how she endures the monotony, the 20-year-old hangs another wrinkled
shirt by its sleeves on the machine press, then writes in a neat hand,
"Sometimes I stop working and start daydreaming about college."

Ms. Silva is unlikely to achieve that dream for one reason: although she
emigrated to this country 12 years ago, she doesn't have a green card. And
for undocumented immigrant students -- many of whom have spent nearly their
entire lives here -- coming to America can both unlock their potential and
prevent them from fulfilling it.

The students are entitled by law to a subsidized education through high
school. If they do well enough to get into college, though, they are caught
in a financial vise: Ineligible for federal aid, they are also charged
nonresident or international tuition rates -- generally double or triple the
standard tab.

"My heart goes out to these kids who were brought here by their parents
surreptitiously," says University of Houston Prof. Michael Olivas. "They
really are in no man's land."

Since 1990, the undocumented proportion of the nation's foreign-born
population has increased from one-eighth to one-fifth. Of the estimated six
million undocumented immigrants, about 1.5 million are children under 18.
About 50,000 graduate from U.S. high schools each year.

Under a 1982 Supreme Court decision, undocumented children can attend public
elementary and secondary schools for free and enjoy equal access to
services. In that ruling, the court struck down a Texas statute authorizing
public schools to turn away undocumented children or to charge them
nonresident tuition.

In Ms. Silva's case, she was provided with interpreters in the Barnstable
schools. Then the school system and the Massachusetts Department of
Education split her $40,000 a year tuition at the private American School
for the Deaf in West Hartford, Conn.

But the aid stops there. The 1965 Higher Education Act, which spawned
federal financial aid, limited it to citizens, permanent residents, refugees
and those granted asylum. Ever since, undocumented immigrants have been
denied student loans when they reach the college level. Unless they move to
one of the six states where they can establish residency, they also must pay
higher out-of-state tuition at public universities -- and out-of-district
fees at community colleges.

Ms. Silva is even more constrained in her options. Gallaudet, which is
private but federally supported, is the country's only liberal-arts
university for the deaf. The school would charge Ms. Silva the
international-student rate of $25,480 -- double its tuition for domestic
students.

No law bars the undocumented from receiving private aid. But most colleges
see little benefit and high risk in aiding undocumented students. Uncertain
of the legal ramifications and wary of antagonizing federal officials,
colleges are also reluctant to allocate scarce scholarship dollars to
applicants who may never be able to work legally or participate openly in
U.S. society.

The last amnesty program for the undocumented expired in 1989. But before
1996, a student like Monique who had been in the U.S. for seven years, with
demonstrable good character and hardship, could still have qualified for a
green card at a judge's discretion. The exemption was then restricted after
immigration foes complained it was being overused. Now, Ms. Silva would
qualify only if her situation caused hardship to a spouse, parent or child
who is a permanent resident.

"I helped Monique get her sights set on college," says Susan Anarino, a
teacher and Ms. Silva's mentor. "Now it's like, 'Just kidding!' She's the
girl without a country. America has created this unique cultural specimen.
Don't we have a responsibility to continue to help her grow?"

Are these students embodiments of the American dream or gate-crashers?
Advocates of tougher immigration enforcement question whether the government
should be in the business of funding their higher education. "By the time
these students get to college, they're adults. If we start providing
taxpayer funding beyond K-12, where do we draw the line? Postgraduate
studies? Residencies?" asks Daniel Stein, executive director of the
Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform. "At some point,
you throw up your hands and say, 'Why do we have immigration laws at all?"

Even students who qualify for permanent residency often have to delay
college for years while papers are processed. As the son of a permanent
resident, Adan Carranza, a Mexican immigrant and the valedictorian this year
at a Houston high school, applied for a green card six years ago -- but
never received it. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service told the
family it has no record of the filing.

Adan reapplied this year, but faces a seven-year backlog and possible
deportation. After his case was publicized in the Houston Chronicle, Texas
Southern University in Houston awarded him a scholarship from privately
donated funds.

Generally, high schools don't even know whether a student has a green card.
Still, undocumented seniors often turn to guidance counselors for help. One
undocumented immigrant from British Guyana, who topped her class at her
Boston high school, is struggling to scrape together tuition for a technical
college she plans to attend next fall. The guidance office steered her to
several private scholarships that don't ask about immigration status. The
valedictorian, who requested anonymity because she fears deportation, also
intends to save money by commuting to campus, while her blue-collar parents
hope to find second jobs.

The Cultural Divide

Ms. Silva lives with her mother and sister in a $700-a-month apartment in a
faded duplex. College dreams linger in her room, from the Gallaudet
stationery pad to her bedtime reading: "College and Career Programs for Deaf
Students," "A Dictionary of American Idioms," and "Chicken Soup for the
College Soul." Her high-school graduation gown hangs on the wall.

The room is an American island surrounded by Brazilian culture. While she
watches "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on television or e-mails former
classmates now in college, her mother and sister are glued to Brazilian news
programs via satellite or Portuguese-language magazines in the living room.

Monique's sister, Camille Silva, and her mother, Zelia Ottoni, patronize
Brazilian coffee shops, groceries and video stores. Every weeknight, Camille
worships at a Brazilian evangelical church. But Monique prefers going to the
mall or eating a wrap at the Lunch Box on Main Street with American friends.

"She's American," says Camille Silva, 25, who came to the U.S. in 1994 and
works as a home health aide. "She doesn't know anything about Brazil."

Mrs. Ottoni, 62, doesn't know English or sign language. One afternoon, in
their living room, Ms. Silva tells her story through an interpreter. She
signs with vivid gestures reinforced by smiles, pouts and noises of disgust.
When her mother interrupts, she shushes her with a raised arm.

"Is my daughter happy?" Ms. Ottoni asks timidly.

"Yes," the interpreter says.

"Thank you, God," Mrs. Ottoni says, sighing. "My life is Monique."

Monique Silva hasn't seen her father, Ernani Silva, since he moved to
Florida in 1992. (He returned to Brazil two years later.) When he calls, her
mother sometimes hands her the phone. Her father shouts, "I love you."

"My hopes for Monique are study, study and study," Mr. Silva, 69, recently
wrote from Brazil. "I would like she spend her life in United States,
especially if we get college and green card for her."

As a child in the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais,
Monique was full of curiosity. She drew pictures to ask questions. A hearing
aid proved useless. She was sent to a public school, where the teachers
didn't know sign language. As busywork, they made her copy her name and the
alphabet day after day.

But word was sweeping Minas Gerais of plentiful jobs in Cape Cod's hotels
and restaurants. Mr. Silva, who had fallen on hard times as a buyer and
seller of beef cattle, migrated in 1986 to the area, where he had relatives.
He worked as a dishwasher and landscaper.

Long Overstayed

Monique and her mother followed two years later. Since no employers were
recruiting them, and no U.S. citizens or permanent residents were in their
immediate family, the Silvas could enter the country only on six-month
tourist visas, which they have long overstayed.

Monique's immigration status made no difference to the Barnstable schools.
Mrs. Anarino, a kindergarten and special-education teacher, tried for hours
to elicit a response from the girl. Finally exasperated, Mrs. Anarino
crumpled up a sheet of paper and threw it in a wastebasket -- making the
sign for "trash."

To the teacher's surprise, Monique beamed, grasping the connection between
object and gesture. She signed back, "Trash." Then she ran down the hall,
dragging Mrs. Anarino by the hand and emitting loud, guttural sounds of joy
as she pointed at everything from the nurse's office to a painted cow
jumping over a moon, demanding their signs.

Soon Mrs. Anarino became Monique's godmother. They spent every Sunday
together, first in church, where Mrs. Anarino would translate the sermon
into sign language, then often going to the beach. Playing in the sand one
afternoon, Monique began shivering with fear and signing, "Ghosts, ghosts."
The fog was rolling in -- and she had no idea what fog was.

At Mrs. Anarino's urging, Monique was moved into a class with hearing
students in fourth grade in 1990. Two years later, Monique's mother naively
asked the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for advice on how to
straighten out the family's status.

The INS moved to deport the family. After Barnstable school officials
intervened, praising Monique's academic promise and warning she would sink
into "extreme depression" if forced to return to Brazil, an administrative
judge gave the family until June 30, 1993, to leave voluntarily, which they
didn't do. The deportation order then took effect, but was never executed.

Mrs. Anarino persuaded Barnstable officials to enroll Monique in eighth
grade at the American School for the Deaf, a K-12 private school where
American sign language was developed. About 40% of its graduates go to
college. Half of the students commute; half reside in dorms during the week
and go home on weekends, as Monique did.

At the school, Monique quickly displayed a talent for art, winning a
national poster-design contest for the deaf. Her paintings adorn several
campus buildings. One canvas, finished a week before her graduation in June
1999, envisions that ceremony on the school's front lawn. Amid flowers,
balloons and butterflies, three girls toss their tassled caps in the air.
One of the girls, wearing jeans under her purple gown and signing "I love
you" at the audience, resembles Monique.

A Late Start

When she enrolled, Monique's sign-language skills lagged behind other
students, reflecting her late start. Most of her teachers expected that she
would attend community college.

Monique had other ideas. At the end of her sophomore year in 1997, she asked
school psychologist Billie McNealey how to improve her vocabulary to get
into Gallaudet. The psychologist encouraged her to read more. "I never saw
her after that without a book in her hand," says Dr. McNealey.

"You can't let a child with so much potential and so much motivation fall
through the cracks."

>From May 1997 to January 1999, Monique's reading comprehension on the
Stanford Achievement Test increased from fourth-grade to seventh-grade
level, higher than 80% of deaf students. Her math leaped from just under
fifth-grade to 10th-grade equivalency -- the 84th percentile.

Yet she was having difficulty following class discussions. Her teachers soon
realized that she was unaware of sign-language comments by students outside
her direct line of sight. In June 1998, she was diagnosed with Usher
Syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by deafness, tunnel vision and,
eventually, blindness.

Monique was devastated -- and even more determined to make it to Gallaudet,
which offers support services for students with the syndrome. A big-sister
program paid her way to Washington for an interview. Danny Lacey,
Gallaudet's admissions counselor, greeted her with the news: She was in.

"When I reviewed her application file last year," Mr. Lacey says, "I was
pleased to see how much progress she had made. If she is a student at
Gallaudet, her reading level will skyrocket."

But Monique's immigration status was catching up to her. For months, her
French class had been raising money for a trip to Paris. She collected $200
by baking cookies and washing cars. But when she confided to her teachers
that she lacked a green card, they realized that if she left the U.S., she
couldn't return. In April 1999, her classmates boarded the plane without
her.

'I Had Lost Hope'

Last summer, Ms. Silva was filling out the federal student-aid application,
when she saw that it required an alien-registration number, which the
immigration service uses to identify permanent residents. For the first
time, she realized that her immigration status stood in the way of going to
college. "I felt I had lost everything. I had lost hope," she says.

Once they learned at the end of her junior year that Monique was
undocumented, her mentors at the American School for the Deaf had begun
consulting immigration lawyers about her case. The outlook was bleak.

Then the school arranged for Monique to win four private scholarships
totaling nearly $1,500. Those barely dented Gallaudet's tuition. Under 1992
amendments to the Education of the Deaf Act, all Gallaudet students who
aren't citizens or permanent residents must be categorized as foreign
students -- with a 100% tuition surcharge.

Ordinarily, according to Mr. Lacey, Gallaudet doesn't provide any aid at all
for international students in their freshman year because they must be
self-supporting to qualify for student visas in the first place. But the
university draws from a small pool of funding to offer $3,000 per semester
to selected foreign students. The school did award Ms. Silva that aid,
hoping, Mr. Lacey says, that she could supplement it from other sources. But
that still left her $18,000 short.

In Barnstable, Mrs. Anarino pitched for donations everywhere from Brazilian
churches to the Kiwanis Club, to no avail. Last August, as seven of her 33
American School of the Deaf classmates entered Gallaudet, Ms. Silva began
looking for work. Dozens of employers spurned the undocumented deaf girl
before she landed the laundry job this spring. Although she is in the
country and working illegally, taxes are deducted from her paycheck. She is
saving her pay for college -- if not Gallaudet, which deferred her
acceptance for a year, then a community college. But a community college
would charge her extra, out-of-district tuition, and wouldn't have adequate
services for her disability.

"I feel stuck," she says. "I've always wanted to be a professional, a
teacher. I would dearly love to teach deaf children. I don't want a menial
job."




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