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My name is Herta Llusho, I am 19 years old, and I writing this because I am about to be deported. I was born in Albania and was brought to the United States when I was 11 years old. With the help and support of my family, I have struggled through more than seven years of legal proceedings to find a way to stay in this country legally. Despite our best efforts, on August 19, I will be removed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from the only place I know as my home. I will be sent back to a country that has become a foreign place to me. I don’t even speak Albanian well anymore. My only hope of staying here is for as many people as possible to ask DHS to delay my deportation until the DREAM Act is passed.
My parents brought me to the United States because they believed in the promises this country had to offer. To them it was the land of opportunities, values, and ideals. They were faithful believers of the American Dream, meaning that through hard work, education, and good character their children could accomplish anything they wanted. In fact, they believed in it so strongly that they sacrificed their own lives, as well as their relationship to make it happen. My dad stayed in Albania with the hope of relocating to the US, while my mom left everything behind in pursuit of a better life for her children. To this day, even after many years of struggle and sacrifice, they still believe that it is all worth it, and so do I. I have been truly blessed in the many opportunities I have received. The United States has made me the person I am today. I would like nothing more than to contribute to the country that has given me so much.
When my parents first brought me to the United States, I attended Pierce Middle School, just outside of Detroit, MI. I couldn’t speak English, at first, but within a year I was able to learn it due to the extremely supportive and patient teachers and friends I made. Some of the friends I made in middle school are still some of my closest friends today. After I finished middle school, I attended Grosse Pointe South High School. Throughout my high school years, I was a 4.05 GPA student and was committed to a lot of extracurricular activities such as the Looking Glass which was a magazine publication of short stories and poems, the Spanish club, and National Honor Society. I ran cross country, track and played a little bit of soccer. Also through my church and other organizations, I volunteered at homeless shelters, summer day camps, and tutoring programs. Last year, I was accepted into the school of electrical engineering at the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM), where I was still able to maintain my GPA. I chose to become an electrical engineer because I really enjoy math and science and I have a lot of family members that are engineers.
I might not be able to continue my studies at UDM though because I have been ordered to leave the U.S. I have been to many immigration lawyers, all of whom tell me that I have run out of options. My brother scoured the Internet to look for something, anything, to help me stay in the U.S. My brother came across a story on dreamactivist.org announcing that Taha’s deportation was just averted. DHS just gave Taha and his mother a stay of deportation until Taha graduates from college. I would like nothing better than for DHS to do the same for my family. That is why my brother contacted dreamactivist.org for help, and that is why you are reading my story, today.
I know I am not the only one that is struggling with this broken immigration system. Going from lawyer to lawyer has taught me how inhuman this bureaucracy has become. If you don’t fit within a certain box it’s as if you don’t matter. I know there are thousands of others like me, or in worse situations than I am in.
Still, like my parents, I continue to believe in the promises of this country; even if those promises don’t come easy. We have to continually struggle to renew those promises so that they apply to everyone. That promise should apply to a young man, like Taha, who against all odds is brought over from Bangladesh and is able to graduate and get accepted into college, as much as they should apply to a young woman like me.
That is why I am asking you take the following actions. Help me delay my deportation until I finish college or until the DREAM Act is passed. Help renew the promise of the American Dream for me, so that together we can work renew the promise of the American Dream for everyone.
ACTION
- Join the facebook group for immediate updates: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=111108019510
- Sign petition which will be hand-delivered to targets: http://www.change.org/actions/view/stop_deportation_of_dream_student_herta_llusho
- Use SEIU Click to Call Action Tool to call DHS: http://call.seiu.org/9/hertadhs
- Call Senator Carl Levin at (202) 224-6221. Urge him to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta’s deportation.
- Call Senator Stabenow at (202) 224-4822. Urge her to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta’s deportation.
- Call Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick at (202) 225-2261. Urge her to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta’s deportation.
49 Comments
Good luck Herta! I signed your petition and have sent it on to friends.
Herta, have you spoken with the top administrators at UDM about helping out? I have a “sister”, from Albania, and because of the connections with Point Loma Nazarene University, she was able to get full citzenship. She has since helped her brother, Gente, get citizenship and her mother now lives here too.
My “sis” is now a top administrator at Mira Costa College in San Diego County.
Thank you to all of you who are supporting me through this rough journey. I greatly appreciate it.
sorry Loo Hoo, I meant to write that comment in general, not just you.
Good luck Herta, and thanks for posting your story here. Please keep us up on what is happening.
I know that the DREAM Act could pass tomorrow on its own, but House and other coalition advocates want to lump it in with a lot of other stuff that has now been tabled until next year (and I’ll believe Rahm Emanuel will let an immigration bill onto the floor in an election year when pigs fly).
They should sever the DREAM Act and pass it now. With people like you getting senselessly deported, it is cruel not to do so.
Not a surprise that the administration announced that it would not take up immigration until next year on the heels of the Sotomayor confirmation. It was a great moment but the Hispanic Caucus and other immigration reform advocates should not pacified into inaction because of it.
Free the DREAM Act.
It’s only cruel political calculus that forces unauthorized youth to suffer as they are the most sympathetic faces of the fight to pass “comprehensive immigration reform.” We’ve got to get congress to start realize that it’s not either/or, that the DREAM Act can be a building block for CIR.
I do understand the idea that there needs to be a comprehensive solution, though. Part of the reason U.S. migration law is so complicated and that we have an alphabet soup of visas is that everyone has put their own little loophole into the system. That’s not excuse to continue to make unauthorized youth suffer, though.
Yeah, it’s not as if further delay is hurting any actual people.
I have signed your petition Herta and hope you are able to stay here. I am sorry for your experience. If my own grandparents and great-grandparents had not been allowed to come to this country from overseas, I would not be in this country today myself. We are a nation of (mainly) immigrants and should be welcoming you and others like you into our family. I wish you good luck and hope to hear good news.
Herta, I am really sorry that this is happening to you. What are the grounds for you and others being deported after all these years? Specifically what law is being used to deport you?
Do you have an INS caseworker to whom we could write?
I’m not meaning to sound harsh, here, but I’m guessing you don’t have much, or any, experience with immigration. ICE (INS is no more, hasn’t been since the reorganization into Homeland Security and out of DOJ)doesn’t have caseworkers. They’re not interested in “helping” immigrants; especially through the last 8 years, the push was to ignore all possible mitigating factors in favor of the immigrant and get the person found “deportable” and then deported ASAP.
I quit practicing immigration law when the so-called “Illegal Immigration” Act was passed in 1996. I can’t tell you how depressing all of us attending a seminar for practitioners on the new law were by the end of the day. That act essentially eliminated most of the grounds used by immigrants to “adjust their status” (to legal residency, with citizenship possible) and their advocates for many years. To say it became “difficult” for someone in Herta’s position is a gross understatement.
If multiple lawyers have told her she is out of options, believe it. There weren’t many to begin with.
Her only hope is that a private bill will be introduced by her Congress persons. But of course, as an “illegal” not a citizen, she can’t vote….only pressure from those who can and do will work.
And that is fighting against all the pressure from constituents who hate anyhthing to help people who are here illegally, whether they sneaked across the border or were brought as infants by parents.
Yes, I am cynical about this, why do you ask?
Herta – I will write to your congresscritters, but I’m not in the district. I hope it works. It would be nice, for me, to accomplish something in this area again. Good luck to you.
my understanding is that the draconian shrubco admin procedures are even being applied to people illegally (or questionably) adopted from abroad as infants and whose American adoptive parents failed to get them properly naturalized. http://seoulmama.blogspot.com/…..re-we.html
Many of these people being deported were subjected to abuse by their American illegal adopters. Now ACE is sending them back to places like Mumbai India with no means of support, no family, no relatives…
I should add the other risk of these cases is that the effected people can wind up legally stateless. In the event that the sending country refuses after the fact to accept the US deportee (on the grounds they forfeit citizenship as a child or as an infant or never got it certified in the first place), the person can, in theory, literally become a non-person… imprisoned forever in immigration detention in the ultimate kafkaesque nightmare.
They can change the name, but they’re still:
Migra, migra, pinche migra…
Can you get a student visa to attend a college or university?
tehanarusa,
Do you know what the restrictions and requirements are for such a visa? Even anything to delay the deportation?
Short answer: No.
You don’t get a visa once you’re in the country illegally. My point above is, it is too late for any of that.
A person in the country illegally will be deported if not eligible for asylum, or a very few other exceptions, and the rules for that have been tightened to a ridiculous level. Well, don’t get me started down that road.
A person in the country illegally is not entitled to any kind of visa. That would require permission to stay, an “adjustment of status.” Nearly impossible in this situation. If you are eligible to adjust your status, in most cases you MUST leave the country and wait, sometimes years, for a visa to re-enter.
Trust me, immigration and adjustment of status, asylum, refugee, everything was Kafkaesque before the “Reform” of ‘96. It is now 100 times worse. That is why we now have tens of thousands of people in detention centers, waiting for their cases to be heard or to be deported. The right of appeal of deportation orders was severly limited, not to say abrogated in that ‘96 law, too.
The Dream Act has been kicking around for awhile – this situation is not terribly uncommon in border states like Texas, believe me – but it has very little chance in the current hostile-to-immigrants climate.
If you want to help this young lady, follow the suggestions and write letters to her Congressional representatives.
Wow. I talked briefly to Rep David Wu’s immigration reform representative yesterday. I wish I’d have known about this then. I’m putting in a call to him, and to her local Senators and Representatives.
I don’t mind the curtness of your response at all. I get the same way sometimes on tech/IP issues, and definitely on economic issues.
Update – listen, folks, I don’t mean to sound harsh in answering some questions – this whole issue makes me so angry, that I get frustrated in explaining it.
I guess I’m also frustrated that the average American has no idea what their government is doing in their name with regard to immigration.
Pressure can work, on elected officials who can then pressure the ICE bureaucrats. Publicity, too.
But this poor girl has four days until she’s going to be put on a plane. I don’t have a lot of optimistim, and that makes me a little impatient with naivete, too. Sorry.
If you are moved by this story, please do follow up with her representatives. At this stage, they are the ones with power to help her.
And to visit the http://www.dreamactivist.org page to learn more about this issue.
There’s a note on the homepage now that a young man they’ve been trying to help has been denied an extension and will be deported today.
ICE does not respond to logic or emotion – but publicity and pressure can sometimes get through to them.
I am sorry to sound like this, but something is missing from this story. How is it her parents made it here in the first place? Did they come legally?
Begs the question of whether we want immigrants with Herta’s qualities?
Her parents, regardless of legal status were following a dream that did well for my grandparents and great grandparents when they immigrated last century.
The dedication and good citizenship Herta has demonstrated ought to count for something.
Early in the article it said:
Where’s Herta’s father today? What are educational opportunities for Herta in Albania should she be deported? Would she be able to return to the US after deportation at some point in the future?
That’s nice and all and I can appreciate that, however the question still remains were they here legally?
Let’s see. Herta was eleven when she came here. Illegally or legally, I don’t think she had much control over it.
How many of our ancestors came over legally? How many native American tribes invited them? Hypocrisy much?
A little has changed over 200 years and a lot of laws have been put into place. If her parent(s) came here illegally, then it is her parents that she must look too, not the INS. I am not saying working in that system is fun, I bet it sucks to high heaven (thus why you don’t want gov’t running health care), but if she is here illegally what are they supposed to do? They cannot allow her to stay and not other because that would bring up discrimination lawsuits all over the place. We live in a different world that we did when immigrants were migrating here. Because they did it way back when is a poor argument at best.
Did Ellis Island immigrants arrive with visas in hand?
My family history argues that we want people that are willing to take risks in order to succeed in the USA. I don’t know how Herta’s parents initially entered the US, or their immigration status.
Regardless Herta seems to be a fine young person that would be a credit to the USA. She’s demonstrated this over the past 8 years. She wants to contribute to our society in the future. It seems like naturalization would benefit everyone, while deportation hurts the USA, possibly to Albania’s ultimate benefit. The point of the DREAM act is to see to it that the US benefits from young people that grew up here and love our country.
Legally it may be she should be deported. There’s some question as to the justice of it, regardless of strict application of immigration law.
Good luck Herta.
Bye bye Herta….this unemployed construction worker whose field has been taken over by illegal immigrants finds it very hard to sympathize with your plight.
What a self centered comment.. Just like the whole right is against universal health care…I got mine and fuck you buddy if you don’t have yours!!
come on, don’t you realize we are all in this together. It is not immigrants who cost you your job but those at the top of the food chain who manipulate things for their own self aggrandizement without thought or care for those who live where the rubber meets the road.
Hey, my great-to-the-11th grandparents wetbacked the Atlantic Ocean in the 17th Century. I guess I’m glad that the Iroquois Confederacy wasn’t organized sufficiently to have an ICE Service.
So, I’m privileged because my ancestors wetbacked long enough ago that no one gives a fig. Is it right I should benefit from that? I don’t know, but it is reality.
You should be very glad that the natives did not have an enforceable immigration policy, or that ship would have had to find other shores to rape and pillage upon. ;)
Blame your employer. He’s not supposed to be employing them in the first place, and he’s padding his wallet at your expense by doing so.
Vote for politicians who want to expand social institutions and heavily fund academic research and commercialization programs.
Root-cause analysis is a lost trade in America.
Large part, but people need social security cards/green cards to work here. Do you wonder what happens to the money withheld from someone’s paycheck who is working on a bogus ss#?
Signed Herta and best of luck dealing with the bureaucracy!!
Called Senator Stabenow’s office said she is aware of this and looking into it..we’ll see. Your post caught my eye because I attended the very same schools you attended. I hope for a good result Herta. For what it’s worth I called my mom in Detroit to see if she knew anyone who could help and she’ll call me if she does..slim hope I know, sorry I cannot be of more help.
Burnie
Just called Senator Levin’s office and the lady will pass the message on. Good luck Herta!
ICE I mean. Great shrubbish name for an agency. Did they TRY to make government agencies more scary under shrubco?
Nahant @ 16 Your ignorance is astounding…and this has nothing to with the health care debate.
Maddy @ 14 True, it is the business owners who hire the illegals that are largely responsible for the current climate in the construction industry. The OBVIOUS fact which none of the pro immigrant people address is that these people have no business being here in the first place.
My momma told me if a million people do the wrong thing, it is still the wrong thing. Now it is we the blue collar crowd who have been feeling the *first* effects of the “look the other way” policy towards the hiring of illegals. When/if your industry becomes swamped with people who have no business in the U.S. and you are forced to compete with them, you will have a better understanding of my sentiment. Once they get to supervisor status, game over.
Having been in the construction industry for 20+ years (primarily in the western states) and having witnessed the takeover firsthand, you should heed my advice. You won’t…but you should. UNemployment is already at staggering levels and the American worker should not be burdened further through policies that devalue our worth.
First they came for the agricultural jobs, but I didn’t work agriculture, so I didn’t care..
Then they came for the construction jobs, but you don’t work construction so YOU don’t care.
Then they came for the (pick your trade) et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
There are tens of thousands of people, equally worthy, who are in the very same situation as Herta.
If you think signing a petition is the way to help, get lots of bic pens and writer’s cramp remedies ready.
Unfortunately, the “promise of the American Dream” was not made to everyone everywhere. There is a long line of people who want very badly to stay in the US (or to come to the US) and many of them have stories that would break your heart. Some of them have been here, delaying what is probably inevitable since before Herta was born. If there is a finite number of people who will be allowed to stay in the US every year, how can I be asked to petition for Herta to stay and the others to go?
Should be millions… gonna go now before someone calls me a troll and really upsets me. lol
good riddance hope you get a job… maybe you unemployment(social service) gets you through, maybe you might even train for a job using your brain!!
You prove your ignorance with every post. I did become a cable technician for a couple of years, but when work orders began to come in with “spanish speaking technician only” on them, I decided to retire. I’m in the landlord business now and spend my time working on my properties.
I address the issue not the individuals, if you can comprehend that.
BTW, is the idiot light on your keyboard lit up?
You prove your ignorance with every post. I did become a cable technician for a couple of years, but when work orders began to come in with “spanish speaking technician only” on them, I decided to retire. I’m in the landlord business now and spend my time working on my properties.
I address the issue not the individuals, if you can comprehend that.
BTW, is the idiot light on your keyboard lit up?
On yours it would be labeled “power”.
Uh your must be broken you repeat repeat Key stuck???
My pc doesn’t have one like yours! Oh and I fix them when people like you screw them up! Been doing it for years… let me klnow when yours breaks and I can help you!
The comments here are better than I expected, but there is still some predictable nativism inching in. It’s hard for folks to comprehend just how broken the U.S. migration system. There is no line for folks like Herta, who were brought to the U.S. before they had a choice and have made this country their home.
The most frustrating thing is cynicism on behalf of PopeRatzo. It’s true there are many like Herta, that is why we should pass the DREAM Act. The only real solution to the problems associated with migration, though, is giving people opportunities in the countries that they come from.
I’ve got an idea but I don’t want to post it here. I’ll send it by e-mail. Just set up a disposable free web mail account. You probably don’t want to post your real e-mail account in this thread, because you are sure to get trolled.
Checking back in – surprise! Trolls who blame children for the sins of their parents if they happen to “illegal aliens.”
Well, at least some kinder-hearted folks learned of yet another injustice in our land of the free.
I signed your petition Herta and I hope everything works out. And as for everyone who doesn’t understand your situation, they don’t know what it’s like to be a dreamie.
Thank you to all of you who are supporting me through this rough journey. I am very grateful!
Also the way, my mom and I arrived here was on a tourist’s visa, then we applied for political asylum.
If more people saw her youtube video it might make a difference. Maybe some other sites would be willing to put it up. They have to enforce the law but they should exercise discretion.