LAST week, I wrote about how a young undocumented college student heckled President Barack Obama, as he was making a speech about immigration reform in San Francisco.
Along with other immigrant advocates, Ju Hong was among those invited by the White House to hear the President’s message.
Hong wrote an open letter to Pres.Obama, published online in The Huffington Post. Let me quote some excerpts from his letter so we may understand where he’s coming from:
I spoke up not out of disrespect, however, either for you or our country. No, I spoke up — and am writing to you now — to ask that you use your executive order to halt deportations for 11.5 million undocumented immigrant families.
My family came to the United States from South Korea when I was 11 years old. Like many immigrants, my mother brought me to this country to seek a better life for her children.
I graduated from UC Berkeley, and am now pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Administration at San Francisco State University. I have lived in America now for 13 years. I consider this country as my home. During my senior year in high school, however, I learned that my family had overstayed a tourist visa. We are undocumented immigrants.
As an American without papers, I was not able to get a job, obtain a driver’s license, or receive governmental financial aid. When my mother was sick and in severe pain, she did not visit a doctor because she cannot procure medical insurance. And when my family’s home was burglarized, she refused to call the police because she was afraid that our family would be turned over to immigration officials and deported.
Like many other undocumented immigrants, I was living in the shadows and living in fear of deportation. However, I have decided to speak out and stand up.
Immigration reform is not only a Latino issue, it’s also an Asian and Pacific islander Issue — in fact, it is a human rights issue. Currently, two million of the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in our country come from Asia. Under your administration, 250,000 undocumented Asian/Pacific Islander immigrants have been deported.
While we only make up five percent of the country, we are disproportionately impacted by your immigration policies.
Last week, I was formally invited by White House staff to hear your remarks on immigration reform in San Francisco. As I stood in the stands behind you, I was hoping to hear about your plan to address the lives of 11 million undocumented people living in this country, like my family.
And while you expressed your support for comprehensive immigration reform, you did not address how an average of 1,100 immigrants are deported every single day under your administration. You did not address how you deported 205,000 parents of US citizens in the last two years.
You did not address how, because of your administration’s record number of deportations–nearly two million immigrants in five years, a record–families are being torn apart: spouses are being separated from each other, parents are being separated from their children, and our brothers and sisters are being separated from one another. You did not to address how your administration would end the anti-immigration deportation programs like “Secure Communities”. You’ve deported more people than any other president in the US history.
Interestingly, you talked about Angel Island during your speech. What you did not mention, however, is that more people are detained every single day in detention today than were detained yearly at Angel Island. You recognized Angel Island as a dark period in Chinatown’s history, but you failed to recognize that more Asians and Pacific Islanders are in detention today than were in detention under the Chine Exclusion Act. In fact, your administration detains up to 34,000 people per day, a record number of detainees in US history.
Because you failed to address these issues, I was compelled to address the concerns of our community.
You claim that the President of the United States has no authority to stop the deportations. And yet, in June 2012, before the 2012 election, which you won with the help of Latino and Asian voters, you implemented Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. With the stroke of a pen, you dramatically changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people like me who can now live without the daily threat of deportation, and can legally work in this country for the first time in our lives.
I know that you support comprehensive immigration reform. But I also know that you have the power to stop the deportations, and that you have the power to stop the suffering, fear, and intimidation facing millions of immigrants like my family.
Your fellow American,
Ju Hong
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Balitang America’s Pinoy Panawagan legal counsel Atty. Lou Tancinco witnessed the scene firsthand, as she was seated directly behind Hong.
When I asked Atty. Lou about what she felt when Hong heckled the President, she replied: “Dear Gel, as a mother, have you experienced your child arguing with you and as you listen, you knew that he was making sense but his manner of arguing was disrespectful? That feeling–is how I could best describe it.”
“As an advocate for Comprehensive Immigration Reform I totally am sympathetic to the immigration concern raised regarding increased deportations. In fact, I felt the passion and frustration of the DREAMER/heckler. But I find the approach unacceptable, outright disrespectful to the President of the United States of America.”
While many kababayans shared Atty. Lou’s sentiments, there are those who admired the heckler for his guts.
(NEXT WEEK: Our readers’ reactions and comments. Abangan!)
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
