Advise for illegal immigrant ?

July 2, 2007 8:07 AM

A student at our university was recently shocked to learn that his mother and step-father are illegal immigrants who have been in the country for approx. 20 years. He was born in Mexico but has brothers and sister born in the U.S. His parents work, own a house here, ect. He has a job, is going to be a junior at the university and is planning on getting married. He has a Soc. Sec. card, but now wonders if it is even legit. He wants to find out what he should do next but is worried that he'll be immediately deported if he tries to get help. As a white-bread citizen, this is all Greek to me. What should I advise him to do?
posted by spock to Law & Government (11 answers total)

See an immigration lawyer?
posted by mckenney at 8:13 AM on July 2, 2007

Search for a local Hispanic advocacy group in your area. It seems from your profile that you are in Nebraska. If so, your friend might try contacting the Chicano Awareness Center, which provides direct services and can probably also hook your friend up with other local organizations.

An advocacy group is your best bet, as they will have a thorough understanding of immigration laws and loopholes and will also have contacts in local government.

For more advocacy groups, see the National Council of La Raza.

Good luck.
posted by brina at 8:35 AM on July 2, 2007

(P.S. Advocacy groups are free and exist to help with exactly this sort of problem. An immigration lawyer may be the way to go in the end, but will cost a good deal of money, and the advocacy group may be able to point to free or sliding scale legal aid.)
posted by brina at 8:37 AM on July 2, 2007

You're in Nebraska? Here's a list of nonprofit immigration organizations.
posted by footnote at 8:53 AM on July 2, 2007

Without a birth certificate showing he was born in America, your friend is in a crappy position. At the very least he is going to need some birth certificate or he will persona non grata everywhere. Definitely, he should contact an immigration attorney but he is probably going to have move out of the country at some point. He should start to prepare for that possibility so that he isn't suddenly deported to Mexico without any plans.
posted by JJ86 at 8:56 AM on July 2, 2007

The parents can gain status thru the children born here. He can then gain status thru the parents.

This will take years.

He needs to get a lawyer.
posted by eas98 at 9:12 AM on July 2, 2007

Yes, he needs a lawyer, preferably before he gets married. If he is marrying a US citizen then he can take that route to gain status in the US but he will need the help of a good lawyer to sort out what to do about his current status.
posted by crazycanuck at 9:18 AM on July 2, 2007

Total anecdote, but a friend of a friend was in a very similar situation, and she ended up getting legal through her marriage. If that's on the agenda anyway, assuming his fiance is an American citizen, he should look into it. He would definitely need to talk to an immigration lawyer, because it's not anything like automatic.

Does your university have a law school? It's possible that they have a low-cost legal aid clinic, which might be a place to start.

Finally, I'd be a little careful about how you talk about this. You've given us a fair amount of information about this person, in a very public forum. I'm probably being paranoid, but he's in an awfully sticky situation, and it's probably not a bad idea to be a little paranoid when you're dealing with other people's lives.
posted by craichead at 9:23 AM on July 2, 2007

Maybe have him contact this guy and ask how his own appeal process is going (Princeton salutorian, class of '06, younger siblings born in the US but his own status is illegal). FWIW, doesn't seem like he's been deported yet. (If link doesn't work, google "Dan-el Padilla Peralta".
posted by availablelight at 11:31 AM on July 2, 2007

[...note: by checking some of the followup articles on his webpage, the guy stopped having a compelling hardship case once he graduated college (and could no longer argue he'd be "denied an education"); and he did have several well-meaning marriage proposals (all of which he declined) from fellow Princeton students with citizenship. Currently on his fellowship at Oxford in UK; since he left the country and his hardship appeal is no longer under consideration, post Ivy League graduation, he's hoping for a visa which will allow him to visit the US on occasion. ]
posted by availablelight at 12:49 PM on July 2, 2007

Padilla wasn't deported because he left the U.S. voluntarily to study at Oxford. He was recently granted an H1-B visa to return to the US. But basically, people in these situations have had to get special dispensations from Congress or find ways to legalize their status in order to stay in the country. Seek legal advice immediately. Do not rely on advice from the internet. Your friend's family needs a good immigration attorney now.
posted by decathecting at 12:51 PM on July 2, 2007