Georgetown student faces a step up or a boot out
By Steve Hendrix, for Washington Post
The job “is such an opportunity for me and my family,” said Gomez, 22, sitting in the student center at Georgetown with an eCommerce textbook on the table in front of him.
After a remarkable academic rise, this son of a security guard and a hotel maid has just a few final exams to go before . . . what? He can’t be sure if it will be the six-figure security of investment banking or exile from the only culture he has ever known.
“There is no certainty,” he said. “It still feels like it could be just a tease.”
Uncertainty has defined Gomez’s life since the day in 2007 when immigration agents in Miami rousted him and his brother and parents from bed and took them to a detention center. The family had lost a years-long application struggle for political asylum and ignored multiple orders to leave. His parents were sent back to Colombia. But after a lobbying campaign by his friends and teachers, Juan was allowed to stay, at least until he finished college. Which he will do, magna cum laude, May 21.
Gomez expects to start work at J.P. Morgan soon afterward, although his permission to remain in the United States extends only through next spring. And the temporary work permit he holds as a student, an I-765 visa, is more common among dishwashers than merger-and-acquisition specialists at blue-chip financial firms.
He hopes the work permit will be renewed, but there are no guarantees.
Gross, way to "make an example" of a productive member of society. I hope he gets to stay.
ReplyDeleteUm...if they had been here for 15+ years, why didn't they try to apply for citizenship? Or a proper visa?
ReplyDeleteI am having trouble feeling sympathy here... Am I missing something?
The whole deportation vs. 6-figure income false dichotomy thing also isn't winning any points with me. He'll still have his degree, right?
Can you apply for citizenship if you are also applying for political asylum? I really don't know... and the whole logic of applying for asylum says to me that you want to retain your original citizenship, even though it's not safe for you to go home.
ReplyDeleteThe_Myth, here's hoping you're Native American or Black, or someone gave your family a more merciful immigration package than this guy is getting.
ReplyDeleteThe_Myth,
ReplyDeleteUm... clearly you have never had occasion to tangle with US Immigration, for which you should thank whatever powers you hold sacred. You can't just "apply for citizenship"; you have to have a green card for a number of years before you can do that. The point of applying for political asylum is not 'to retain your original citizenship' - it's to get the green card, so that you can then, after several more years, apply for citizenship. There are other ways of getting a green card, yes; all of them difficult, and all of them, in recent years, made steadily more difficult by post 9/11 paranoia.
I could tell you lots of horror stories, but I won't. But you don't know how lucky you are that you don't know them yourself.
I'm having trouble feeling sympathy too, actually. Part of it is that I'm not really sure investment bankers are "productive members of society." The other part is that perhaps there is some amoral American citizen that could take that six figure job.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the guy should be deported, however.
Then what about the issue of foreign citizens having a prospective company sponsor their visa? Every foreign national I knew who was ever employed in the US did that. In particular, I clearly recall a Canadian friend who couldn't leave her current job unless her prospective employer would sponsor her. And several grad school friends from China and one from the Caribbean did the same.
ReplyDeleteOne would think J.P. Morgan would do that for a prospective employee, if he was in such demand.
Oh, and Merely Academic, thanks for reminding me about the green card pre-requirement to application, even though your rhetoric was clearly meant to deride and humiliate me for daring to criticize someone who, let's be clear, has actually violated established law and managed to stay in the country legally for educational purposes. You're a class act (or something).
And Frog & Toad, my immigrant ancestors came here legally. Remember Ellis Island? My peeps got to be called greasy wops and degos about a 100 years ago, though. Now I get all the benefits of being considered white. Oh joy. Can someone remind me what they are again? The days of white privilege are long gone, in case you haven't noticed. The whole county's in the shitter.
Everyone considered him the coward of the COUNTY....
ReplyDeleteThere's someone for everyone, and Tommy's love was Becky.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather tells me of a time when red blooded Americans were capable of going to Wall Street ans screwing everything up for this country.
ReplyDeleteNow we have to hire foreigners to do this.
The_Myth, I thought so. The Ellis Island story is the one white folks always drag out, as if they are somehow the virtuous immigrants -- when legal immigration was simply unavailable to anyone who wasn't European. Whoopie to your ancestors for taking advantage of that privilege.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if working at JP Morgan makes you a productive member of society, though.