As his deportation hearing nears, young undocumented dreamer shares his story

The Miami Herald
Posted on Thu, Jul. 02, 2009
As his deportation hearing nears, young undocumented dreamer shares his story
BY BRITTANY LEVINE
blevine@MiamiHerald.com

Walter Lara considers himself the all-American guy next door, raised on the mantra that if you work hard and do well in school, you can ''make something of yourself.'' But the 23-year-old, undocumented Florida resident -- who supporters say is ''as American as apple pie'' -- faces deportation on Monday because his parents never adjusted his immigration status after they moved to Miami from Argentina when he was 3.
He has garnered support from lawmakers and immigration activists, but time is not on his side.


Lara held a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, hoping to sway lawmakers to write a bill that could keep him in the United States. The only ways to stall Lara's deportation are if immigration officials postpone it, or if Congress passes a private bill granting him temporary residency. But with Congress out of session and the July Fourth holiday approaching, things don't look good, Lara advocates said.

Florida Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson has asked a top Homeland Security official to postpone Lara's deportation, and Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, has penned a private bill seeking the same thing.

Lara, who did not know he was undocumented until he tried to apply to University of Central Florida, said he knows little about Argentina.


MDC GRAD

He graduated from Miami Dade Honors College with an associate's degree in computer animation. He dreams of working for Pixar.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Lara in February while he was installing satellite dishes for DirecTV.

Lara's story parallels that of Alex and Juan Gomez, two local youths who were to be deported in 2007, but weren't.

Like Lara, they had a Facebook group of more than 1,300 members calling to halt their deportation. They, too, had a private bill and lawmakers on their side.

The difference for the Gomez brothers was timing and popularity, said Miriam Calderon, a policy director at First Focus, a children's advocacy group handling Lara's public relations. The Gomez's became poster children for the DREAM Act, a bill that would grant citizenship to undocumented immigrants who attend college or serve in the military.

Juan, now 20, is at Georgetown University and Alex, 21, is studying in South Florida.

Halting their deportation was seen as a temporary solution until the DREAM Act passed. But it didn't pass in 2007. The measure was introduced again in March, and advocates say it has a better chance now that President Obama, who has publicly supported immigration reform, is in office.

Lara lives in Orlando with his grandmother, a legal resident, and his 15-year-old sister, who is a citizen. He plans to watch July Fourth fireworks with them.

In 2007, Lara's neighbor offered to sponsor his citizenship and hire him to work as a high-tech sculptor. John Wilkinson, a sculptor from Central Florida, said only Lara and a handful of others know how to make the specialized art with 3D lasers.

`ZERO PERCENT CHANCE'

Wilkinson, 54, visited an immigration attorney with Lara, but the attorney said not to do anything because immigration reform was ''just around the corner.'' ''Then we had a chance. Now there's a zero percent chance Walter can stay,'' Wilkinson said.

DREAM Act critics such as Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank, said, 'It's not America's responsibility to clean up the parents' mess.

''This idea of picking and choosing particular cases and passing bills for particular individuals is no way to run a railroad,'' he said.