As a 22 year-old law student, Kamal defended his Moroccan family in a deportation case. More than two years later, he sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
Bahar Paykoc
When the United States government threatened to deport 22-year-old Kamal and his family to Morocco two years ago, he took on a responsibility few people at his age would be willing to take. He represented his family in the deportation proceedings and fought for his right to remain in New York.
Today, Kamal is 24 years old and studies at the prestigious Fordham Law School in Manhattan. He is bright, self-confident and articulate, and plans to pursue a career as a civil rights attorney. He is also an undocumented resident of the United States, although he has been living with his family in Queens for 13 years.
Kamal’s case caught the attention of US media this year, and it became a story of the unjust effects of American immigration law on a young man’s life. It inspired advocacy for immigration reform and support for others in the same situation.
When Kamal was just 11 years old his parents brought him and his two brothers to Queens from Casablanca, Morocco. He has never returned to Morocco since. He is still fluent in Arabic but no longer speaks French.
“Our first language is now English, and our friends are Americans, we are essentially American; culturally American, the way we think, the food we eat, the way we talk… We are very Queens, very New York,” he said.
He cannot imagine calling any other place home.
Kamal’s deportation story begins in the aftermath of 9/11 when the Federal Government launched a “Special Registration” program to register every male over 16 in America, with citizenship in one of 24 predominantly Muslim countries or North Korea.
As a New Yorker, Kamal says the attacks on the World Trade Center scared him, “My family felt the pain that every other family did,” he said. But as a Muslim family, they were given a deadline to register at an immigration office, agree to be interviewed, photographed and fingerprinted.
83.000 people registered under this program. Kamal said it was extremely painful: “We went to the building, me and my family. We were made to feel like we did something wrong. Like we were responsible for 9/11. It does not feel good being fingerprinted. For people who never committed crimes to have to go to the police station… It is a weird situation.”
While they were there, immigration officials discovered irregularities in Kamal’s family’s paperwork. They ended up among the 13.000 people who were called for deportation proceedings. It was a huge shock, he explains, “You feel like you are part of a country and the country is rejecting you… After a while you realize that it is the immigration laws, not the people.”
When Kamal’s family came to America in 1992, his father was working as a caseworker at a social service organization in Brooklyn. His employer was meant to sponsor him for a permanent visa but never completed the paperwork.
Kamal’s parents never knew. They suddenly realized they had no legal status in the US. “Even though we did all the right things, because the employer messed up, we had an immigration problem,” said Kamal. There was nothing they could do. When Kamal searched for the employer, he learned that it no longer existed.
Dreams could come true
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) is a non-profit organization devoted to solving the problems of immigrants in New York. They have been leading a campaign for a legal initiative which addresses the problems of thousands of undocumented students like Kamal so they can fulfill their dreams. Quite appropriately, it’s called the Dream Act, and the NYIC hopes it will be passed by the Senate in 2006.
Senators Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah and Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, in 2001, and reintroduced it in 2003. The act did not pass in either attempt.
It was recently reintroduced once more on November 18 by Durbin, Chuck Hagel (R- Nebraska) and Richard Lugar (R-Indiana). It will become law if passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President before the end of 2006.
Angelly Cardenas, sits on the NYIC’s Youth Leadership Council and is a member of The New York Dream Act Task Force. She said the Dream Act offers more hope than any other immigration bill because it is about the people who came here at a young age, outside their free will, and are raised as Americans.
Unless they were born in America, children of undocumented parents have the same immigration status as their parents.
The Dream Act would make it possible for an undocumented young person to become a permanent legal resident after a 6-year conditional period, if they came to the US before they were 16, stayed in the country for more than 5 years, and maintained a “good moral character” throughout.
Current legislation allows young undocumented immigrants to go to school until the end of high school. After that, going to college is legal but difficult, because most private schools require them to pay exorbitant out-of-state tuition. New York, however, is one of 9 US states that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. But these children are still ineligible for financial aid from the government. Luckily, there are some universities, like Kamal’s school Fordham, which provide financial assistance for undocumented students.
The sons and daughters of undocumented parents cannot work legally. Cardenas says it is a big social problem. The kids often drop out of high school, and do have any hopes for the future. “They think, what’s the point in going to college, if when I graduate I can’t do anything,” she said.
The Dream Act would entitle Kamal to permanent residency, and allow him to integrate fully in society. “It would completely fix my problem,” he said.
Not defeated
Kamal’s story was picked up by both newspapers and television, and he received numerous calls from immigrant advocacy groups offering to support him. The New York Times published a full-page article about him and his brothers with the heading: “Caught in a Net Thrown for Terrorists; A Family of Strivers Faces Deportation to a Country They Barely Recall”. He became one of the national symbols of the campaign for the Dream Act.
Although it was helpful, the media attention was hard to deal with. “It is hard to take a very private matter and broadcast it to the world,” said Kamal. But he stressed that the positive side of having his story told was much more important. Cardenas agreed: “Students come out with their faces, and that humanizes the issue.”
Kamal has been an advocate and activist for comprehensive immigration reform and especially for The Dream Act. He said he always appreciates the opportunity to speak to people, to show how the law has affected him and other people.
“People assume that the law works, that there is a legal system taking care of everything. But once they see the effects of that system, and in this particular situation, an absurd result, then they start questioning how immigration law effects immigrants,” he said.
Kamal says most of his friends did not know about his situation until last April. “Nobody knew. I guess everybody assumed I was either born here or I was a citizen. My New York accent helps,” he said. “As it became more serious I said, ‘Look, I may not be able to stay here forever.’ Sort of just giving them a warning of what may be coming.”
“You feel very vulnerable throughout the process. It’s like your life has been taken from you and you have no control over it. It’s in somebody else’s hands. You are powerless; you are the subject of an injustice and you can’t do anything about it,” said Kamal.
The support from his university community was critically helpful. Professors were encouraging; students wrote petition letters and even set up a table in the cafeteria to ask for support. “Whenever people found out, they were shocked and outraged that the American government would do such a thing,” said Kamal.
“When you have deportation proceedings you keep going to the court every few weeks or months, and it is a scary experience because you don’t know when the next time is,” said Kamal. Finding a lawyer to take his case was a turning point. During an internship at the Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services, where mostly Arab women seek help, one of his supervisors found out about his situation, and offered to represent him and his family.
For now, Kamal remains in New York. After being at the brink of deportation for over two years, his case was administratively closed this past July. “This is very good news considering what we were facing before,” said Kamal, who now can go to school without worrying about court. “I get to have my life back,” he said. But it’s an uneasy rest. He remains hopeful someday to become a citizen of the only country he’s ever really known, the United States of America.
Dream Defender
By Bahar Paykoc
