Miami Valedictorian Could Be Deported

March 2, 2012: By Seni Tienabeso @Senijr_ABC and Matt Gutman @mattgutmanABC | ABC News North Miami High School senior Daniela Palaez has a 6.7 GPA, the valedictory nod from her classmates, a brother in the U.S. Army and deportation papers to Colombia. In a hearing on Monday a federal immigration judge ordered the 18-year-old Palaez, [...]

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Some DREAM students face nightmare scenarios

Thanks to the shameful failure of Congress to pass the DREAM Act last year, an estimated 60,000 students in U.S. high schools and colleges lost their chance to come out of the shadows and regularize their immigration status.

The DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act would provide conditional permanent residency to some deportable alien students who graduate from U.S. high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment.

After the legislation was blocked by a Senate filibuster in December, the Obama administration announced it would not pursue removal actions against DREAM Act students, even if they were out of status or undocumented.

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ICE Set to Deport University of Arkansas Honors Student

Jonathan Chavez, an honors student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, was on his way home to visit his parents when immigration authorities nabbed him on a bus and hauled him to a private detention facility in Florida. His crime? Despite the fact that his parents have legal status in the United States, Jonathan does not possess legal status because his naturalization process was stalled when he turned 18.

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Napolitano urges Congress to pass DREAM Act

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press – Thu Dec 2, 2010

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged Congress Thursday to pass legislation allowing some foreign-born young people who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children to become legal residents.

The law would help Napolitano’s department focus on deporting immigrants with criminal records, she said.

The Senate failed in September to pass what’s known as the DREAM Act. The bill is in the pile of legislation awaiting action in the final days of the current Congress and it’s unclear whether lawmakers will vote on it again before the year ends.

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