Jose Vargas joins fight for immigration reform after he admits: I am an illegal alien

Pulitzer Prize winner sets up lobby group Define American A Pulitzer prize-winning US journalist who caused a sensation in America by revealing he was an illegal immigrant is now openly campaigning for immigration reform in the United States. Jose Vargas recently stunned the worlds of American politics and journalism by writing a lengthy confessional piece, revealing that he had been unwittingly smuggled into the country as a young boy from the Philippines. He went on to forge an illustrious reporting career at some of the country’s best known publications and has now set up a campaigning group to press for immigration reform. The development turns Vargas from journalist into advocate and plunges him into one of the most contentious debates in American politics. There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. In recent months several states have passed strict anti-illegal immigrant laws that some activist groups say amount to racial profiling. Advocates of a crackdown, however, say illegal immigrants have played the legal system and taken away American jobs. Vargas has now set up an organisation called Define American that aims to lobby for reform and fight prejudice about who makes up America’s huge population of illegal aliens. In a video on the group’s website, Vargas tells how he discovered his papers were fake when he was 16 and went on to lead a secret life as someone who had no legal right to live in the US, but was a very successful professional. “I pay taxes. I am self-sufficient. I am an American. I just don’t have the right papers. I take full responsibility for my actions and I am sorry for the laws that I broke,” he says on the video. Campaigners have welcomed Vargas’s stance. “Jose is just one of many people who were brought here as children and who now want to legalise their status. He puts a face on a story and counters some of the ugly arguments made by anti-immigrant groups,” said Tyler Moran, policy director of the National Immigration Law Centre. Campaigning groups are currently focused on the so-called Dream Act, a piece of legislation aimed at allowing students who graduate from high school in the US but who arrived illegally as children to be granted permanent residency rights. At the moment there are numerous cases of such teenagers facing deportation orders. “These are often model students in our schools,” said Moran. However, the legislation is currently held up in Congress and unlikely to pass due to trenchant Republican opposition. Many Republican politicians, motivated by a largely anti-illegal immigrant base, have moved to the right on the issue in recent months as the presidential election looms next year. Moran said there was little chance the Dream Act would pass before then. “It is impossible to do almost anything in Congress right now,” she said. US immigration New York Newspapers Paul Harris guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 9, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.