Is ‘coming out’ undocumented becoming less risky?

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student’s shirt at a coming-out event in Orange County, March 10, 2011

A couple of posts last month addressed a strategy that a growing number of undocumented youths have embraced as they campaign for legalization, revealing their immigration status as a political act.

It took off last year as undocumented college students campaigned for the Dream Act, proposed legislation that would have granted conditional legal status to young people brought here illegally as minors if they attended college or joined the military. The bill died in the Senate last December, but students and their supporters have not given up their campaign.

Some perceive “coming out” as equal parts catharsis and political strategy, and see the trend continuing. Here’s how Jorge Gutierrez, a young man I spoke with last month, put it when I asked him if he saw revealing immigration status as becoming a cultural norm among his peers:

“I think that definitely, if we find ourselves not getting the Dream Act to come through Congress, I think it has the potential to reach that cultural norm,” he said. “Even though we didn’t pass the Dream Act last year, what the movement was really successful in was getting students to come out all over the nation. It is building critical mass. For lack of a better word, it’s getting in the face of ICE agents and saying ‘arrest me.’”

It’s a risky move, with deportation as a possible consequence. But as more young people reveal their status, is there safety in numbers? A story in the Los Angeles Times this weekend took up the “coming out” story in relation to the recent arrests of seven undocumented young demonstrators in Georgia, who were released with misdemeanor tickets for blocking traffic, but no more. From the story:

At an April 1 public forum in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that immigrants who would have benefitted from the Dream Act were “not the priority” when it came to enforcing immigration law.

Well before her comments, administration officials had said they would focus deportation efforts on those who commit serious crimes. But some immigrant rights groups have complained that the administration has been too aggressive in deportations. The Obama administration deported 392,862 people in the last fiscal year, up from 369,221 people deported in the last full year of the Bush administration.

When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman was asked to comment on the agency’s inaction after the Atlanta protests, he simply referred to Napolitano’s April 1 comments.

As policy statements go, it is a rather ambiguous one. Does it mean that no Dreamers will be deported? Or that some of them will?

It’s a good question. A federal immigration official interviewed for the story declined to elaborate further, anti-illegal immigration activists expressed frustration, and one student organizer quoted took the administration’s approach so far as a positive sign, saying “The more out there you are, the more public you are, the safer you really are.”

Some students up for deportation in high-profile cases have been given reprieves, but other young people have not. Has revealing immigration status truly become less risky for those who do it?  Feel free to share thoughts below.

  • random hero

    Well, before the comments section is bloated with anti-immigrant and xenophobe remarks, it’s all true. Suck it haters. I myself am undoc and I have more resources available to me through the various connections our movement and groups have made through our activism, time in school and working with other groups/campaigns for social justice. The fact of the matter is that not only are we all extremely well versed in our rights, but we have procedures in place ala “break glass in case of emergency.” Point is that we know how the system works because we are a part of it for better or worse. But at the same time it’s just as personal as it is political because we no longer live in constant fear of doing something wrong and getting arrested. Once that fear is gone through knowing our rights, we go on about our days just like anyone else. In fact, I talk to ICE agents all the time in Little Tokyo when they’re grabbing their java at starbucks. Nice people.

  • http://twitter.com/rigo_ Rigo

    Yes, it’s true! I haven’t felt safer than this in a while. #out

  • Anonymous

    As an older U.S. citizen, I get frightened for these kids, but I sure feel safer knowing I share my country with young people of such courage. May God bless them all.

  • Anonymous

    Labeling anyone who opposes the Dream Act, or any other form of amnesty, “anti-immigrant and xenophobe,” simply reveals paucity of thought. It is as if there could not possibly be any valid opposition. Of course, people who rely on rational discourse know enough to reject such labeling out of hand, recognizing it for what it is: An attempt to brainwash the ignorant into believing that they have a RIGHT to be in this country unlawfully, and that only haters, racists, etc., seek to deny them their *rights.* And by labeling these people as “anti-immigrant” they seek to blur the line between a genuine, lawful immigrant and an illegal alien. Fortunately, most citizens do not fall for these cheap theatrics that lack any genuine merit. I am encouraging my Congressmen to vigorously take up on their challenge those who dare ICE to arrest them, and to follow through with deportation. Rule of law, national sovereignty, sustainable population growth and prudent use of resources all demand it, regardless of the illegal aliens’ skin tone or country of origin.

    I do wish that illegal aliens and their advocates would put as much effort into fixing their broken countries as they put into breaking into and unlawfully remaining in the USA, which is NOT their country.

  • anonymous

    let me tell u a parable, let’s say you were born, and of course you have your biological father, then your mother leaves that man without your consent, but since your still young another man came into your life and raised you up and acted like a true father to you (you even learned call him, “dad”), now tell me who do you consider your father??? ur biological father(a man you don’t even know, who is a complete stranger to you) or the man that raised you up and treated you like a father? of course your going to say, “well the man who raised you up” exactly! the same thing goes for these young immigrants! they had the country were they were born, and their parents brought them to the united states at a young age without their consent because they’re children, then they grew up in the great lands of the united states and learned u.s history and pledged allegiance to the u.s flag, and know no other country than the united states of america! heck, some are willing to join the military and fight for this great country! now back to the parable, do you think the child has to be forced back and live with a man he doesn’t even know?? or better say take these kids back to a country they don’t even know?? sounds cruel, doesn’t it???

  • Gomezsam27

    Im a 5th generation Mexican-American age 21 and im against illegal immigration, I think you illegals should go back where you came from, I speak spanglish and im proud of it and im in san antonio tx, we will never surrender, this is america

  • THE BLACK SPIT

    Hey MALINCHE. You are a disgrace to your heritage. Thank God…there aren’t a lot like you

  • Gomezsam27

    one thing im not illegal and i am not part of your hertiage, im an american not a wetback or mojao, LOS MOPEADORES is the real word for mop haaaaaaaa

  • Anonymous

    You use a false analogy. The difference is that you did not force yourself, or you were not forced by someone else, upon the stepfather against his will and in violation of law. You did not demand this stepfather support you even though he did not want to do it. You did not use his resources against his will. False analogy. Seems cruel? Tell it to the illegal alien parents who made their children illegal aliens. Put the blame squarely where it belongs.