Online only exclusive: This story is part 2 of the undocumented students story.
Alex’s Story
Western senior Alex, whose name has been changed in order to protect his identity was brought to the United States by his mother when he was 8 years old. His voice trembled as he described how his mother fled Mexico in order to save Alex and his younger sibling from a rip-torn life of violence and abuse his father inflicted upon them.
“I was so traumatized by domestic violence that I did not know my name,” Alex said.
Many people in Mexico struggle to get basic human necessities like food and water Alex said.
“It’s really, really frustrating because life is so uncertain for people like us, we’re regular people. We’re like anybody," Alex said. "The only thing that makes us different is a thin piece of paper that dictates whether we’re legal or not."
Alex said before coming to Western, his fear of deportation kept him from going anywhere other than school and home.
“When I came here to Bellingham, it was the furthest place I’d been in 14 years,” Alex said.
Although Alex has a 3.8 grade point average, he worries that his undocumented status may keep him from using his degree to get a decent job once he graduates. He said he is frustrated by the notion that uneducated documented immigrants have more opportunity to succeed in the U.S. than he
does.
Alex’s Deportation
Two years ago during Dead Week at Western, Alex's worst fears were became reality. Alex said he went to the Greyhound Station to take a bus to Seattle to visit his girlfriend for the weekend. A Border Patrol agent, who became suspicious when he overheard Alex speaking Spanish on his cell phone, apprehended him.
“It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Alex said.
The Border Patrol agent asked to see Alex's legal documents, Alex told the officer that he had no criminal record and that he was Western student.
When Alex could not produce any documents, he was arrested and taken the North West detention center in Tacoma where he was held for two days.
Alex was told he was going to be deported and was given the option to be voluntarily removed, which meant he could apply for legal entrance to the U.S. after his deportation.
Alex said the detention center officers did not ask him what country he was from, but they put a wristband on him that stated he was being deported to Spain. Alex told the officers he was from Mexico. On the third day, the detention officers shackled his legs, waist and hands with heavy chains, loaded him on to a government plane and flew him to El Paso, Texas.
“From there I had to cross a bridge on foot to the Mexican border,” Alex said.
Alex said he walked into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico with $300 his mother had wired to him and the few clothes he had packed for his trip to Seattle. He had no place to go and did not know anyone in Mexico.
Alex immediately tried to call his family who lived in the United States, but was unsuccessful because he did not know how to make a call outside the U.S. His family had no idea where he was for more than two weeks.
“They thought I was dead,” Alex said.
A few minutes later, a man approached Alex and convinced him he could help Alex get back to the U.S.
Afraid and alone, Alex accepted the stranger’s offer. Alex said the man made a phone call and a few minutes later a car pulled up next to him.
“Two guys grabbed me and stuck me in the back of a taxi and took me to a random motel and they held me there with ten other people,” Alex said.
Alex was held for four days at the motel. He said his captors offered to help him cross the border into the U.S. for a fee of $2,500 to be paid upon arrival. The next day he and 25 other people were loaded into vans, taken to a mountainous, desert region and dropped off with one of the leaders who worked as their guide. Alex walked with the group for more than three days through the desert with no sleep, little water and only an orange to eat. He encountered rattlesnakes and an armed robber who stole the group’s meager supply of food and water.
“It was a really bad experience,” Alex said. “We walked over 60 miles over the mountains, in the desert, from Novalis [Mexico] all the way to Tucson [Ariz.],” Alex said.
Once Alex was back in the U.S., his captors took him to a house in Tucsan, Ariz., where he was forced to strip off his clothes so he couldn’t run away. He was held hostage there for a week.
“They were holding me because I had to pay them the money,” Alex said.
Alex was finally able to call his mother and asked her to send $2,500; she agreed. Shortly after his captors released him, Alex made his way back to Washington state.
“I came here with a goal and that was to be somebody in life and for me, I don’t care what it takes just as long as I get there, I don’t care if it takes suffering,” Alex said.
Ari Alatriste's Story
Many immigrants were brought to America by their parents at such a young age that American culture is all they know.
Tom Nerini, director of Western’s Student Outreach Center, said even though many immigrants who came to the U.S. as children may know Spanish, they may not know the vernacular of Mexico.
Western junior Ari Alatriste migrated to the U.S. from Mexico City with her family when she was 11 for safety reasons.
Alatriste said when she lived in Mexico City there were two parks right outside her house, but she wasn’t allowed to play outside without being accompanied by an adult, for fear of being kidnapped or a becoming a victim of crime.
“When I was in Mexico City, I had to be constantly watched," she said. “It’s one of the biggest cities in the world, and it has a lot of robberies and violence.”
Alatriste said her family owned their own business in Mexico City and made a decent living, which made them a bigger target for crime or kidnappings.
“Kidnappings happen a lot, even to middle-class families,” Alatriste said. “It’s not the best place for a kid to grow up.”
Alatriste said she hopes Western will do something to provide some sort of legal protection for undocumented students who live in constant fear of being picked up and deported.
“I would like to see Western pass a law to protect their records, or maybe the school could become a kind of sanctuary for undocumented students,” Alatriste said.
Education and Money
Nerini said education is essential to a bettering a person’s life. He said even in the worse case scenario, if undocumented students get a degree and then gets deported, their education will help them get better paying jobs.
“If we really want to do something about immigration, let’s educate them so they can go back and promote their economy because we know that the bulk of folks who come across [the border] do so for economic reasons.”
Nerini said undocumented individuals contribute $5 billion a year to social security, pay approximately $5-7 billion of income tax and contribute to the economy overall simply by purchasing items in the U.S.
Although undocumented people contribute approximately 10 percent to social security, they are ineligible to collect it because of their legal status.
“The Social Security Agency depends on the money that undocumented people put into it,” Nerini said. “We use them when they’re healthy and fit, and send them back when they’re old and sick.”
Nerini said undocumented students are ineligible to receive financial aid, state funded grants, take out loans or get work-study jobs.
“If you're an international student, you're eligible to work on campus, but if you're undocumented, you can’t work on campus,” Nerini said. “These are big challenges for them.”
Applying for private scholarships can be problematic because many applications mandate students to check a box stating they are documented.
“What I take personally is that I see what these kids go through to get their education,” Nerini said. “I see some of the talent that’s being wasted because some [undocumented immigrants] can’t go to school.”
Nerini said in any case undocumented students bring money to the campus because what little scholarships they can get does not come close to what they need to pay for school.
“They're not taking any resources away from the campus," Nerini said. “Our job in admissions is to admit the most qualified students regardless of where they’re coming from or what they’re status is, so if an undocumented student isn’t qualified to be enrolled, they’re not going to be admitted.
They're not taking any seats other than the seat of a qualified student.”
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