Steve Li

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November 19, 2010 | 11:25 PM | By

Student Steve Li being released from detention

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A photo of Steve Li, from a Facebook page set up by friends

A week ago, it seemed there would be nothing stopping the deportation of San Francisco student Steve Li to Peru, where the 20-year-old Chinese-American was born while his family was living there. Now, a few days after the intervention of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein temporarily halted his removal from the country, he is being released from an Arizona detention center and is on his way home.

Inside Bay Area and other outlets reported earlier today that Li would soon be on his way back to San Francisco via Greyhound bus, according to his lawyer. From the story:

He will remain under supervision and must regularly report to immigration officers once he is back in the city, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

News of his release came hours after Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a private relief bill in Congress on behalf of Li. The bill, if enacted, would grant Li a green card allowing him to permanently reside in the United States. Congress rarely passes such bills, but the mere introduction of the private bill effectively halted Li’s deportation.

Last weekend, Li’s deportation appeared to be a done deal, with his removal to Peru planned for last Monday. A San Francisco Bay Guardian headline from a week ago read: “Only a miracle can save Steve Li now.”

Li’s story drew national attention in part because of its unusual nature: He was born to Chinese immigrants living in Peru, where spent his first eleven years. His family then came to the United States and applied for political asylum. They lost their bid and were ordered deported, but stayed. Meanwhile, as Li continued growing up, his parents didn’t tell him he was here illegally.

The City College of San Francisco nursing student was arrested in his home by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in September. His parents were also arrested, and later released on electronic monitoring. They could be deported to China if their native country agrees to take them back. But since Li was born in Peru, he is considered to be a Peruvian national.

Li could still be deported, but the Democratic senator’s relief bill on his behalf will at least buy him time to witness the outcome of an upcoming vote on the DREAM Act, proposed federal legislation that would create a path to legal status for undocumented youths attending college or joining the military. A vote is expected after the Thanksgiving break. Feinstein supports the measure.

Yesterday, in a comment posted on Multi-American regarding Li’s story, Felix Huancas wrote:

Give him the opportunity to stay and prove what he is capable to do once he will get a nursing degree. He is not a criminal, he is a nursing student who just want to serve this country, this country has been his homeland, you are sending him to a country where he has no hope or family.

FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Dream Act, Immigrant detention, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Steve Li, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
November 15, 2010 | 6:47 PM | By

Quote of the moment: On the need for Asian voices in the immigration debate

“It is really frustrating to be mostly left out of the conversation. Mostly it’s because the Asian-American vote is missing — the media do not sample the Asian vote to tell what we’re really voting on.”

- Karen Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C., quoted in an opinion piece in the Seattle Times

Syndicated columnist Esther Cepeda’s piece from yesterday has hit a nerve, making the rounds extensively on Twitter today. The column begins: “If I were a member of the third-largest minority group in the United States, I’d be really frustrated that the immigration issue continues to be discussed almost exclusively with Latin Americans in mind.”

Too true, for a number of reasons. Narasaki, whose civil rights organization advocates for Asian and Pacific Islander immigrant communities, estimates that the Asian vote represents only about 5 percent of eligible voters, while Latino voters represent about 9 percent. Both political parties have failed to invest in Asian voters and don’t understand them very well, Narasaki said.

But the “Latino-centric immigration narrative” that Cepeda criticizes stems from a number of causes, among them limited community outreach in Asian communities (compared with Latino communities) and, on the media side, mainstream-media laziness and a general dearth of minority journalists who know better.

Yet one of the biggest immigration stories of the past week, the pending (and now postponed) deportation of San Francisco college student Steve Li, involves a young Chinese-American man born in Peru. Like the mostly Latino kids who have been the subjects of media coverage surrounding the DREAM Act, proposed legislation that would give undocumented college students and military recruits a path to legal status, Li was also living in the shadows unable to adjust his status, along with his family.

It’s all the more reason to bring the voices of these immigrants and their families into the conversation.

FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Asian American Justice Center, Dream Act, Steve Li, Twitter
November 15, 2010 | 9:20 AM | By

A last-minute reprieve for student Steve Li

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A photo of Steve Li, from a Facebook page set up by friends

San Francisco college student Steve Li will not be boarding a plane for Peru today as planned, his deportation stalled following a last-minute reprieve.

Late yesterday afternoon, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that while the 20-year-old Chinese-American nursing student remains in custody at an immigrant detention center in Arizona, his Monday deportation to Peru was put off. Li’s attorney Sin Yen Ling told the Chronicle that an immigration officer advised her of the change, but did not provide her with details as to why or what happens next.

From the story:

“Why? I don’t know,” said Ling, whose client is at a detention center in Florence, Ariz. ”In terms of when he’s going to be put on a plane, I don’t know that either. They wouldn’t provide me with additional information but I do think it has a lot to do with the advocacy work that’s been happening.”

Just Friday, a San Francisco Bay Guardian headline read: “Only a miracle can save Steve Li now.” The last-minute miracle might have to do with a fierce campaign put on by Li’s supporters to put pressure on legislators and the intervention of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who according to the Chronicle has asked immigration officials to suspend his deportation while she introduces a bill that would allow him to stay temporarily. The Democratic senator is a supporter of the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, known as the DREAM Act, proposed legislation that would allow a path to legal status for undocumented students like Li.

Li’s story has drawn national attenion because of its unusual nature: He was born to Chinese immigrant parents in Peru, where they lived temporarily before bringing their son to the United States as a child. The family arrived on visitor visas and applied for political asylum, but lost their bid several years ago and were ordered deported. Li’s parents reportedly never told him that he remained in United States illegally.

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FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Dream Act, Immigrant detention, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Steve Li, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
November 12, 2010 | 12:28 PM | By

A Chinese-American student’s pending deportation to Peru

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Steve Li in a photo from a Facebook page set up by friends

A story that has been making the rounds in recent days is that of Steve Li, a 20-year-old Chinese-American college student from San Francisco who is being held in an Arizona immigrant detention center awaiting his imminent deportation to Peru.

The destination seems baffling at first. Here’s the backstory: Li’s parents left China for Peru before he was born. He was born in Peru and lived there as a child until his parents left for the United States, fed up with political instability there. They applied for asylum here but their application was denied. At the time they arrived in the United States, Li was 12 years old.

While deportation cases involving American-raised young people are sadly common, Li’s case is unusual in that his parents, who were temporarily detained then released on electronic monitoring, would be deported to China permitting their native country takes them back. But because they had their child in Peru, where Li has no friends or family, he is considered a Peruvian national.

According to one of several stories in the San Francisco Chronicle, Li did not know that that his family was issued an order of deportation six years ago, after losing their asylum bid. The San Francisco board of supervisors recently adopted a resolution banning his deportation, but Li could be sent to Peru as soon as Monday.

Here is what some bloggers and others have been saying online:

From ColorLines, which today pointed out that Li’s arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in September took place shortly before the defeat of a Senate defense bill that carried the DREAM Act, legislation that would create a path to legal status for students like Li:

The very same week that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would attempt to add the DREAM Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was readying itself to take a DREAM Act-eligible youth into custody for deportation.

Days later, while the Senate preened and postured in D.C. over a failed move to pass the DREAM Act in September, a family on the other side of the country was being torn apart.

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FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Dream Act, Immigrant detention, Sen. Harry Reid, Steve Li, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement