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North State Immigrants Face Hurdles, Exploitation

Tercius Bufete
/
NSPR

 

Dozens of undocumented immigrants assembled in Chico's St. John the Baptist Church last week seeking information and clarity. The source of the confusion: President Obama's recent executive action granting driver’s licenses, work authorizations and deportation relief to those qualified.

The Northern California Immigrant Resource Center has hosted these sessions all over the North State hoping to quell the spread of misinformation and prevent people from being taken advantage of.

Leading the clinic was immigration lawyer Andrew Holley. The program seeks to educate people on how to get driver's licenses and where to seek legal help and advice, as well as what services they may eligible for.

We're dealing with a community that gets taken advantage of quite a bit because they are hard-working, because they don't speak the language, because they have hope and they are good with their money. So, when they hear, 'Hey, I hear this program is available — can I apply?' somebody with a lack of morals would say 'Sure you can, I'll do your paperwork, just give me $5,000.' That's one way misinformation gets spread.”

Holley is referring to unethical “notarios” or “immigration consultants,” whom the National Bar Association calls “an increasingly serious problem in immigrant communities throughout the United States.”

These notarios often use fraudulent advertising that tries to convince immigrants that they can receive legal status regardless of whether or not they are actually eligible. More often than not, these so-called consultants charge a lot of money while simultaneously damaging cases and causing some victims to lose any shot at immigration relief.

“A couple weeks ago, I had somebody who came to the United States illegally and they said 'I thought Obama was opening the border for two days for everybody to come in — that's what I heard.’ And I have to keep it to myself, but I almost want to laugh, but it's heart-breaking at the same time. The word gets out that Obama was going to open the door to the entire border for two days — it's crazy. But on the other hand, it's typical because word gets around and it gets mutated.”

Though President Obama didn’t provide a free pass for a green card, he did, through the power of executive authority, grant some undocumented workers relief.

One local beneficiary of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is Chico State student Dilan Pedraza. The program protects students from deportation and, if they meet requirements, allows them to receive a social security number, a driver’s license and work authorization. For undocumented students, being accepted and then paying for college remains difficult. Pedraza doesn’t know whether the tears that came when he  received his first university college acceptance letter were because of joy, or because of the fact that he knew he couldn't afford pay to attend college.

I'd be driving, delivering pizza and sometimes I'd have to pull over and just cry because I didn't know why I had to suffer so much. -Dilan Pedraza, Chico State student

Pedraza’s story isn’t uncommon. Many federal and most state aid remain out of reach for undocumented students.  

“I'd be driving, delivering pizza and sometimes I'd have to pull over and just cry because I didn't know why I had to suffer so much. I used to cry while I was driving and say 'Why me, why me?' I remember when everyone started getting accepted to college, like everyone was saying, 'Oh you know what, they gave me a financial aid package of $18,000' or 'You know what they're giving me $12,000 — that's not enough, I don't want to go there' and I would tell myself 'I wish they gave me a cent.'”  

An outspoken undocumented student, Pedraza isn’t one to mince words about the stigmas that continue to weigh down the undocumented population.

“I was brought here when I was two months. I have no idea what Mexico looks like, so if you want to deport me, you want to send me to an unknown land — the United States is my land. The United States is my country. This is where I grew up. And a lot of students, we overall, we just struggle with identity issues — identity issues of where do we belong, who am I, why do they treat me like that, especially growing up as a kid. And it's really sad.”

Pedraza says that a persistent fear among the hundreds of undocumented students at Chico State is what happens to them if the programs designed to benefit them are defunded — a fear that nearly came to pass when House Republicans leveraged Homeland Security funding against the president's executive action on immigration earlier this month.

He, like many undocumented students, continue to live with an uncertain future. He says that he has lived most of his life without DACA, and even the possibility it could be canceled by the next president isn’t enough to stop him. He hopes to attend an Ivy League university and fully understands he needs to beat the odds but he says:

“You know, I've done it once, people tell me 'You know what you aren't getting into college dude, there's no way you are getting into college,' and you know, here I am.”  

In the interest of full disclosure: while he's not undocumented, Tercius Bufete's immigration status is rather complicated.

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