Posted on 04/14/2009 10:47:12 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
In elementary school, Benita Veliz dreaded substitute teachers. Her classmates would act up and the sub would threaten to call the principal, a prospect so upsetting to Veliz that her regular teacher began placing her in a colleague’s classroom on days the teacher could not make it to class.
Imagine how Veliz, now 23, reacted this January when she was thrown in jail after a traffic stop because she is an unauthorized immigrant.
“To go from that to being in jail was surreal,” Veliz said, tears welling in her eyes.
Veliz’s parents brought her across the border when she was 8 years old. She worked doggedly in school, graduating valedictorian of her class at Jefferson High School in 2002 and later from St. Mary’s University. She works as a secretary for a church and dreams of going to law school.
However, if Congress doesn’t change immigration laws, Veliz most likely will be deported to Mexico. She has an immigration hearing scheduled in June.
Like the estimated 65,000 unauthorized immigrants who graduate from U.S. high schools each year, Veliz has pinned her hopes for the future on the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for children brought here by their parents before age 16.
Under the act, immigrants must serve in the military or earn a college degree to stay permanently. After failures in past years, lawmakers reintroduced the bill last month.
With a Democratic-controlled Congress and a supportive president, advocates say the stars could align this year.
“The (presidential) election was a real game changer on this,” said Paco Fabian, a spokesman for America’s Voice, a campaign for comprehensive immigration reform.
As in years past, the DREAM Act will face opposition from groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform. According to director Ira Mehlman, the act creates an incentive for parents to break the law. Children must pay for their parents’ actions, he said.
“It isn’t fair, but it is the parents who created the situation,” Mehlman said.
Giving up isn’t in Veliz’s vocabulary.
“You don’t have to accept that,” Veliz said. “You can make a conscious decision to fight for justice.”
The consequences of Veliz’s status didn’t hit until high school, when her friends began getting drivers’ licenses and jobs at McDonald’s. She realized her college dreams were imperiled because she wasn’t eligible for federal financial aid.
People have said she should have gone back to Mexico and applied for residency.
“At 14, was I going to drive over to Mexico? And do what? Stay with who?” Veliz said.
The last time she visited relatives in Mexico, she was 6. They had no electricity or running water, and she rode a donkey to reach the remote outpost.
Instead, Veliz worked feverishly to pack her resume with achievements, from joining Future Farmers of America to performing in the class musical.
Claiming she’s not naturally smart, Veliz took the hardest classes at Jefferson, getting to school early and staying late for extra tutoring. She didn’t like to hear other kids make excuses — I’m poor, I’m not good at school, my dad is an alcoholic.
“Whatever, whatever, whatever,” Veliz said. “I’m going to overcome it.”
A testament to her tenacity, Veliz did all this with a tumor growing silently in her nose, making her persistently sick with what doctors told her was allergies.
When doctors finally diagnosed and removed the benign tumor, Veliz realized she had been breathing through her mouth for five years.
Her hard work paid off with a full scholarship to St. Mary’s University. But after graduation, her options were limited.
In January, a police officer stopped her for rolling through a stop sign. Veliz didn’t have a driver’s license or residency documents, and the officer handcuffed her and turned her over to immigration officials.
Veliz assumed she would find a legal avenue to stay, but a lawyer quickly dashed her hopes.
“She told me there was nothing I could do. I had images of being thrown out of a van in Mexico,” Veliz said.
That’s when Veliz decided to go public.
Her story appeared in a New York Times column, and her friends started a Facebook group called “Don’t Deport Benita Veliz.” Several television stations picked up on the story and in a couple of weeks, she is scheduled to appear on a national Spanish language show called “Al Punto” with Jorge Ramos.
On her way to becoming the national poster child for the DREAM Act, Veliz has mixed feelings about the publicity.
“It’s not about Benita Veliz getting deported,” she said. “It’s about kids all across the nation in this situation who are not free to speak out. It’s wasted potential.”
More than anything, Veliz just wants to work. And pay taxes.
“I want to give back,” Veliz said. “By deporting me, I will never have that opportunity.”
“Ms. Veliz can go back to her country, and then if she feels the need, she can get in line to legally enter the US.”
EXACTLY. Boo-hoo, cry me a f*king river. Do things legally, or get the f**k out.
I’m tired of this BS. It’s a friggin insult to all who came here legally. F*king losers.
A few minutes searching Google shows Benita Veliz has been very active with the National Student Partnership, a group that helps direct clients, like illegals I’m guessing from her comments about her own experiences, to government funded services.
According to one NSP web site including material on Veliz:
http://www.nspnet.org/about/about_volunteers.htm
“Due to her own personal experiences, she [Veliz] has the remarkable ability to relate to her clients and put them at ease. ‘Sometimes clients tell me, “You don’t know how I feel,” but I can honestly say I do...I was there once. Helping someone to realize the value they have as a person, worker, and citizen, is the most rewarding part of client work.’”
NSP press release web site, bunch of typical liberal dem spending and Clinton Global Initiative crap.
http://www.nspnet.org/news/press_release.php
She’s such a star figure the NYT recently used her as an example in the debate over the “DREAM ACt” debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/opinion/28sat4.html
Such obvious propoganda is annoying. The articles stress her innocence, capabilities and even her religious background in order to make her case palatable to the US public, but ignore her links to liberal dem social spending groups like NSP.
Ping!
“She works as a secretary for a church and dreams of going to law school.”
Well, this is your fist lesson on the LAW.
“She works as a secretary for a church and dreams of going to law school.”
Cry me a freakin’ river. Tuggin’ at my heart strings. NOT!
The BTK Killer also was extremely involved in his church; that’s how they caught him.
LAW school? LOL. Guess you don’t have to be LEGAL to go to LAW school.
Ms. Ludwig’s bias is showing. No such thing as an “unauthorized immigrant”...apparently she doesn’t know the difference between an ILLEGAL ALIEN and a LEGAL IMMIGRANT.
Open the article and click on Ms. Ludwig’s name. You can educate her.
Send her back.
Anybody want to count how many laws she’s broken and benefits she’s stolen from deserving Americans?
So she’s a secretary at a church. Isn’t that nice. Evidently her church didn’t teach her to be in submission to the authorities over her. She should have been trying to correct her status, and she shouldn’t have been driving without a license. Now she’s boo-hoo-ing and looking for sympathy. Go cry to your lawless parents, honey. They’re the ones who put you in this position. Apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
What I got back...(S.O.P. and get back every time I’ve ever complained to a reporter about their inaccurate terminology)
“Thanks for your feedback on the story Kim, I personally do not have a problem with the term “illegal immigrant” but our editors have chosen the term “unauthorized immigrant” as the style rule that all reporters must follow.
Take care, Melissa
Melissa Ludwig
Reporter, San Antonio Express-News
Phone: 210-250-3194
Fax: 210-250-3105
Check out our Class Notes blog at http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/education/
Thanks Kim for today’s lesson in political correctness. Brought to us courtesy of the MSM.
You should ask the MSM if and when they run a story on a rape victim; do they refer to the assailant as an....
Unauthorized Boyfriend?
I just wrote Ms. if I want to keep my job, I have to call them that...and I asked her. I’ll let you know if she replies again!
Why wouldn’t she be a suitable gift to Mexico?
So I wonder who checked her high school transcripts to see if she truly was the ‘star pupil’ she claims to be? Why isn’t such a promising student in college? There are a million government/charity programs to help just such a person as her out.
A scholarship that should have gone to a US CITIZEN and that CITIZEN was denied a college education!!!
This bad grammar from a valedictorian? Shouldn't it be with whom? tsk, tsk
LOL. Alas - a revisionist generation.
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