By: J**

J** — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:05:30 +0000

Illegal is when you are undocumented AND you have actually committed a crime.
Undocumented is when you’re here legally but it takes ICE eighteen months to process your paperwork and you’re picked up in that time for NOT having those papers. Undocumented is when a piece of paper gets lost or filed in the wrong folder, and when they go to check to see if you’re legal they ASSUME since that paper is not where it should be you ARE illegal. Undocumented is when you can be deported for someone else’s clerical error.
Those of us who are lumped together in the ‘illegal’ category prefer these terms to define our status. We are all in favor of deporting those truly ‘illegal’—those who are undocumented AND have committed a crime, but what about those of us who are merely undocumented, some of us through no fault of our own?
I was an illegal. I had just graduated high school on the honor roll, had received a full scholarship to an art college in my home state and went to fill out my first job application for a summer job until I started college in the fall. On the application I checked the box saying I was an American citizen and gave them my drivers’ license, social security card and birth certificate to photocopy for employment records.
Instead of a call saying I had gotten the job I got ICE/DHS on my doorstep putting handcuffs on me and saying I was illegal. Over the next three hours as I was strip searched and processed I learned that I had been adopted from overseas as an infant (something my adoptive parents never told me) but that since a) my parents never officially filed the adoption paperwork with immigration; or b) ICE lost my paperwork, I was not a citizen, I was illegal, and I was being detained for deportation.
I screamed. I cried. I had a temper tantrum. How would you feel if you found out as an adult that your parents are not your parents, your name is not your name, your birthday isn’t actually your birthday and this country you call home isn’t home anymore?
I never even thought to ask my parents if I was adopted, and they would not have told me the truth anyway. Do you know if you’re adopted? Do you know that your parents are indeed your parents? Have you ever walked into the ICE office and said, hey, do I have a file with you guys? I will bet it never even crossed your mind because you believe you were born here, your parents told you you were born here, your birth certificate says you were born here.
Mine said that too. And I wasn’t. I spent 3 years in ICE detention for something that was not my fault, and my college education—along with my career goals—died.
And I am not the only one who is being detained for paperwork or clerical errors, ‘undocumented’ through no fault of our own.There are a lot of people out there who say they speak for the illegals. There are more who say they speak for citizens. We undocumented are a forgotten party in all of this; there is no one to speak for us. We are in the gray area between legal and illegal, and for a lot of us it is through no fault of or own. The prevailing atmosphere in the US terrifies us so we stay silent.even for those of us, like me, who are now ‘legal’ (I now have a naturalization certificate) there is a fear that having once come under ICE scrutiny, coming under it again is tantamount to automatic deportation.But I am also a citizen of the US. I grew up here. This is my home and my country and my people. And as a citizen of the US when we see something happening that is wrong, that goes against the founding principles that are the basis of our country’s system—justice, fairness, freedom for everyone—I am obligated to tell my story so that people who don’t understand, can, so that decisions can be made that are fair for EVERYONE.

Comments on: Debate on the Terminology – Illegal Vs. Undocumented Immigrant

By: J**