An undocumented immigrant speaks out

By Angelica Velazquillo

I am an undocumented immigrant. This month, I and nine other undocumented young people were arrested in Charlotte, N.C., after staging a sit-in that stopped traffic at a busy downtown intersection.

Our goal is education, not deportation, for undocumented students.

Ours is a movement that started in Arizona and then spread to California, Georgia, and North Carolina. This movement is not going away.

Although President Obama has promised change, his administration is deporting people at a faster rate than the Bush administration did.

We are tired of waiting for change. We are tired of seeing families torn apart. So we took action.

When my family moved here, I was 4 years old, and my brother was 2. When we got older, we realized that going to college and living as everyone else does would be difficult. I graduated from college, but my brother hasn't been able to complete his education.

In many states, including mine, more anti-immigration laws are being passed.

So we spent three days in jail to challenge a system that has deported nearly a million people in the last three years. We were willing to be sent to a federal detention center, but because of all the publicity surrounding our protest, we were released. I guess officials want to pretend nothing happened.

Although we still face criminal charges, the government has dropped our deportation orders. This, however, prevents us from challenging our immigration status and applying for work permits. Despite our academic accomplishments, community involvement, and all our hard work, we have been left in limbo again.

Some say we are not Americans. But our civil disobedience shows how much we love this country and how American we are. Like the activists of the civil rights movement, we are standing up for our ideals, and we are willing to sacrifice.

We want to be citizens. We want opportunities, not deportations.