Posted on Thu, Aug. 09, 2007

Halt the drain of American talent

BY JOSE DANTE PARRA HERRERA

I remember the glee when I opened my University of Florida acceptance letter 14 years ago.

Then I heard my future shatter when the UF financial-aid office told me that there was nothing it could do, given my immigration status. I remembered that moment recently, as I read about Juan Gomez, the Killian Senior High School teen who graduated with honors and who blazed through the SAT. He is undocumented and faces deportation. In leaving, he would take with him great talent that could serve this country.

Many will say, too bad, Juan broke the law. I say: Current immigration law does not rid the country of criminals, but hard-working people like Juan who can continue to make it great in ways big and small. Sadly, Congress just missed a great opportunity to comprehensively reform the system, thus, continuing to ruin lives and waste valuable human capital.

There is another chance to fix it, however, even if just partially, through the Dream Act. This bipartisan bill would offer a path to legal status to students who arrived here before age 16; and go on to college or the military, among other requirements. I hear about such people all time at the Colombian American Service Association, the immigrant-advocacy group where I serve. Stories like those and Juan's remind me of when I, too, was asking for a shot to better myself and contribute.

I graduated from Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High school with honors. I was captain of the school's Knowledge Bowl Team. I was on the track team. I volunteered with the Red Cross in Homestead during Hurricane Andrew's recovery efforts. All that was irrelevant: I was in immigration limbo, and it meant no access to financial aid. As I clutched the toneless phone in August 1993, tears cascading down my face, my parents hugged me. Mom and Dad told me not to worry. She would work overtime at the plastics factory, he would deliver pizzas over the weekend, but, by God, we were going to Gainesville.

As I read about Juan, however, now I know I was blessed. Like Juan, friends rushed to help financially. Unlike Juan, I was not deportable anymore.

Off to Gainesville we went. After three semesters, I transferred to Florida International University and graduated in journalism. I went on to write for The Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, covering stories such as the Elián González saga and a series of cases in which a clique of Miami Police officers planted guns on suspects they had just shot, to justify the killings. I've given back to my new country, both professionally and economically.

And again, there's Juan. My high school achievements pale next to his volunteering, his 1400 SAT and 3.96 grade point average. Given the chance, his potential is boundless: The next Henry Kissinger, or Intel's founder Andrew Grove? Probably the next Mel Martinez?

The sink-or-swim reality that immigrants face generation after generation has made them entrepreneurial and hard-working. When nurturing immigration policies align with this latent energy, great things happen. Look around in the Cuban community: Norma Ruiz-Castañeda, who sold knickknacks from door to door in Hialeah, put her four children through college and went on to inspire me, an undocumented Colombian boy, as my sixth grade teacher; Emilio Estefan rose from mailroom worker to music industry mogul; Mel Martinez went from Pedro Pan child to U.S. senator.

But current laws keep millions of people in the shadows, negating their economic potential and denying their dynamism to the country.

Today, Juan is the face of hundreds of thousands of promising young people whose futures are threatened by an immigration policy that contradicts not only economic rationale, but the ideals that the Statue of Liberty and Miami's Freedom Tower symbolize. Congress could right some of this by passing the private bill by Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, which would legalize Juan. In the larger context, Congress can benefit the country by passing the Dream Act. It would keep true to American ideals and benefit not just Juan, but America's long-term prosperity.