Virginia is a 2007
honors graduate from North High School in Phoenix.
She was awarded three scholarships and planned to attend ASU this fall. She was well liked by her teachers at North,
active in school organizations and from all accounts, a positive role model for
her friends. She was “responsible for
other kids doing well in school,” one friend said. “She never ‘ditched’ and she always got good grades.” People looked up to her.
But
on the night of Aug. 11, two weeks before ASU classes began, police pulled Virginia over for
driving without lights. The police said
she lacked a valid license and impounded her car. On Aug. 14, when she tried to get her car
back, she was arrested and charged with forgery for showing what law
enforcement officials said was a fake driver’s license from Mexico. She was immediately detained. Her friends said that the original charges
were later dropped, but by then it was too late. Forgery is a Class 4 felony and the police
had informed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that she was in
custody.
It appears that Virginia never saw a
judge or a lawyer. She never saw family
or friends, though she was able to make some phone calls from her holding
cell. Her friends said she mostly called
her mom. On Aug. 16, she signed a
voluntary return order and was transported by bus to Nogales that same day. Why did she sign the
order? Virginia
isn’t here to answer that question so we can only guess. Perhaps it was because
she trusted people. This was her
home. She was brought here by her family
when she was 8 years old and in the 4th grade. She’d never been in
any trouble. She played by the rules.
She learned English, did well in school, graduated and was making plans for her
future. “She wanted to give back to her
community,” her friends said. Or perhaps
she signed because she was frightened.
If she thought her chances of coming back were better if she were voluntarily
deported, it might have made sense to her to sign.
But truly, this makes no
sense at all. We’ve all invested in Virginia and our
investment was paying off. What is
accomplished by dropping her on the streets of Nogales?
What kind of a message are we sending to students who are working hard
and finding success in our schools? That
a routine traffic stop by the police -- who say that
public safety is their priority, not immigration status -- will land you in a
place you hardly remember or might not even know? And perhaps, more
importantly, what does it say about us?
That we’re the kind of people who look the other way when authorities
set rules that deny an 18-year-old girl the chance to see her family? That we think it’s OK to use our tax dollars
to leave a young woman on the streets of Nogales?
It’s not OK and it’s time
we said so. We’re all frustrated at the
lack of comprehensive immigration reform, but criminalizing kids can’t be part
of anybody’s solution. Let’s tell our elected officials that we expect them to
work on real immigration reform that takes into account that we’re talking
about people, not just policy. And it
the meantime, let there be no more deportations of students, voluntary or
otherwise, who are after all, just kids.
And let’s bring Virginia
home.
Update: According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s
Office, a commissioner for the Arizona Superior Court has “issued a bench
warrant for (Virginia’s)
arrest because she did not show up to her preliminary hearing.” (See link to article in Arizona Republic
above.) The hearing was set for Aug. 28;
Virginia was voluntarily deported to Mexico on Aug.
14.
