{"id":128047,"date":"2016-02-21T17:11:44","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T00:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=128047"},"modified":"2017-01-10T06:49:04","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T13:49:04","slug":"arrest-of-college-student-who-lacks-legal-status-is-a-cautionary-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/02\/arrest-of-college-student-who-lacks-legal-status-is-a-cautionary-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest of undocumented college student is a cautionary tale"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_128052\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-128052\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Zamora-Richmond004_JPG_800x1000_q100-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Raul Zamora\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Zamora-Richmond004_JPG_800x1000_q100-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Zamora-Richmond004_JPG_800x1000_q100-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Zamora-Richmond004_JPG_800x1000_q100-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Zamora-Richmond004_JPG_800x1000_q100.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Callie Richmond \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">After being pulled over for a broken taillight while a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 2009, Raul Zamora found himself in an immigration detention center instead of class for a week.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Almost seven years ago, Raul Zamora,\u00a0a 19-year-old University of Texas at Austin student,\u00a0was driving down Robert Dedman Drive\u00a0when campus police pulled him over for\u00a0a broken taillight.<\/p>\n<p>They discovered there was a warrant out for Zamora over an earlier unpaid\u00a0traffic ticket. Booked into the Travis County\u00a0jail, his fingerprints were forwarded\u00a0to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, a routine procedure at the time to identify arrested people who are in the country illegally.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/02\/14\/former-undocumented-ut-student-looks-back-legal-ba\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. It&#8217;s part of the news organization&#8217;s &#8220;Border on Insecurity&#8221; series.\u00a0The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.texastribune.org\/bordering-on-insecurity\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to get<\/a> story alerts.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Within days, Zamora found himself\u00a0in the South Texas Detention Facility in Pearsall on the brink of deportation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re there in this detention center and you hear all these stories, everybody knows what\u2019s coming for them,\u201d Zamora, now 26, recalled recently.\u00a0\u201cI knew [deportation] was a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zamora&#8217;s parents had brought him to the United States from Mexico when he was 10, and Central Texas became his home. He went to a Catholic high school in Austin and earned a two-year\u00a0soccer\u00a0scholarship at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio before arriving at UT in 2009 to major in urban studies.<\/p>\n<p>Though he was not ultimately sent back to Mexico, it would take Zamora three years to untangle the legal mess that began with his traffic stop. His story is one immigration rights activists point to as a cautionary tale \u2014 without safeguards, federal programs designed to catch dangerous immigrants and undocumented criminals can just as easily sweep up college students with broken taillights.<\/p>\n<p>Because of changes in immigration policy made in 2014, it\u2019s unlikely that a student in similar circumstances now would face the battle Zamora did.\u00a0But with border security and immigration policy roiling the 2016 presidential election, there&#8217;s no way to predict which way the political winds will blow.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Zamora&#8217;s case is one\u00a0example of how the since-abandoned federal\u00a0Secure Communities deportation program turned many students\u2019 lives upside down, said\u00a0Denise Gilman, director of UT\u2019s immigration clinic, which represented Zamora.<\/p>\n<p>The program allowed federal immigration authorities to determine a person&#8217;s immigration status by\u00a0receiving fingerprints taken in local jails\u00a0even before those arrested were criminally charged. The program, largely dismantled in 2014, was opposed by liberal and immigrant activist groups and supported by conservatives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere have been huge shifts in the way the [Obama] Administration has handled cases like this one involving young people who have strong ties to the U.S.,\u201d Gilman said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that those picked up by police don\u2019t get sent to deportation proceedings, but it\u2019s not as widespread as it was when Raul was picked up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zamora\u2019s detainment caught statewide attention, and a petition to stop his deportation garnered thousands\u00a0of signatures.<\/p>\n<p>The immigration clinic was able to talk federal prosecutors into\u00a0freezing his removal proceedings in 2012.\u00a0Zamora later qualified\u00a0under the Obama Administration&#8217;s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allows children of immigrant families who do not pose a threat to national security to apply for work permits.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, DACA was transformed to allow people who came to the United States as children and met certain guidelines to request consideration of deferred action.\u00a0In Zamora\u2019s case, the immigration clinic had \u201cto beg and plead\u201d when trying get him out of deportation proceedings, Gilman said.<\/p>\n<p>The soon-to-be husband and father says he\u2019s put the experience in the rearview mirror, although his case will have to be reopened before he can move forward to obtain full citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had never gone through something like that in my life,\u201d Zamora\u00a0said. \u201cYou start questioning your future. You start questioning a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Jon Feere, legal policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, said he is less sympathetic toward Zamora&#8217;s parents who overstayed their tourist visas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not unreasonable for Americans to expect foreigners to respect our system of laws,&#8221; Feere said. &#8220;Once that trust is broken, it is very difficult to rebuild, but returning home and attempting to enter legally in the future might be a good place to start.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To avoid these situations, Feere said he thinks ICE should return undocumented immigrants home at the first opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>At the UT-Austin, International Student and Scholar Services provides support to students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents, including undocumented students, according to program coordinator Meghan Merchant.<\/p>\n<p>Immigration status is not a barrier to admission in public higher education in Texas, and students who meet the criteria for Texas residency are also eligible for in-state tuition rates and can apply for state financial aid.<\/p>\n<p>About 300 students without legal status currently attend the University of Texas, according to the school\u2019s international office.\u00a0Zamora\u2019s deportation scare\u00a0was\u00a0unusual because he was such a well-rounded student, Gilman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe had so many equities in his favor \u2014 a smart young student, really wanted to contribute to the community \u2014 and yet he was dumped into deportation proceedings,\u201d Gilman said.<\/p>\n<p>With a work permit under the DACA program, Zamora is now on\u00a0track to become a U.S. citizen. At the moment, his case is administratively closed and will have to be reopened before he can gain citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>Zamora is currently the operations manager at CRT Flooring in Austin and is just a few classes shy of earning his degree, but he hopes to eventually finish school. He is set this month to marry his fianc\u00e9e, a U.S. citizen who&#8217;s been his best friend since middle school.<\/p>\n<p>They are\u00a0expecting a baby boy, and Zamora said his son won\u2019t grow up without knowing what his father went\u00a0through to stay in this country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would tell him that he\u2019s lucky to be born here and not to take it for granted,\u201d Zamora said. &#8220;Try to remember what I went through for you to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.\u00a0A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/support-us\/donors-and-members\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost seven years ago, former University of Texas student Raul Zamora\u2019s broken taillight landed him in a South Texas detention facility on the brink of deportation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,3331,2260,116],"class_list":["post-128047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-bordering-on-insecurity","tag-texas","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}