Pinoy grad student in US faces deportation

With the US Senate failing to pass a bill that would have legalized the stay of alien students there, a Filipino graduate student who finished magna cum laude from Harvard University now faces deportation. Arrested for being an illegal alien, Mark Farrales, 31, is hoping two senators and a congressman – all from California – will co-sponsor a private bill that could grant him citizenship, or at least give him more time to seek other means to stay in America. A Los Angeles Times report early this week said Farrales was arrested at his residence in Reseda in Los Angeles by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The report quoted a US-ICE statement saying the immigration courts have “consistently held that Mr. Farrales does not have any legal basis to remain in the US." “He remains in ICE custody while the agency makes preparations to carry out the removal order," the ICE article added. Farrales is currently detained at the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster. He would have been a beneficiary of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a legislation that would have extended a path to citizenship to illegal and deportable alien students. The bill seeks to grant, among others, citizenship to foreign students who graduate from US high schools, who are of good moral character, who arrived in the US illegally as minors, and who have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment. Under the bill, qualified alien students may earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years of a four-year program in an institution of higher learning. But the bill, introduced in 2001 and has been re-introduced in the US Senate since then, was subjected to a vote last December 18 and fell five votes short of the required 60 (55 to 41). Earlier, the measure passed the House by a vote of 216 to 198. Farrales is one of the more than 1.7 million youth who would have benefited from the passage of the DREAM Act. Asylum request repeatedly denied Farrales arrived in the US with his parents in 1990 when he was 10 years old. At the time, his family sought asylum after his father was shot outside their home in Quezon City. His father, who survived the attack, was a prominent lawyer and crusader against corruption in government. He was supposed to run for Congress when the ambush happened. However, his father’s application for legal status was repeatedly denied. Two of his father's sisters have legalized their status by marrying a US citizen, while another sister is slated to also marry a citizen. Meanwhile, Farrales went on to study and become a valedictorian at Belmont High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in government, earned a master's degree at University of California (UC) in San Diego. His father’s death in 2006 paved the way for a legal battle for the status of the family. Calls for support Farrales was pursuing his doctorate also at UC when he was arrested in November. His lawyer, Leon Hazany, has already asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen Farrales' case, and expressed hope that the filing of a private bill will delay his deportation long enough for a successful legal defense. The offices of Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and Representative Brad Sherman, have reportedly expressed interest in Farrales’ predicament and are reviewing his case. An online petition has also been set up asking the three US legislators to support Farrales by filing a bill that would grant him asylum, as well as release from detention. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Time reported that Farrales has been holding impromptu English classes to about 10 fellow detainees in the detention center from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Somalia. “I’m saddened but not angry," he said as quoted in the report. “I wouldn’t be going home (if deported); I’d be forced to leave my home again." — JA/LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV