New GED Test Scheduled for January 2014 and How It Will Affect DACA Applicants

Undocumented youth have confronted many roadblocks in their lives, especially in education.   Negative immigration-education policy and laws meant to deny undocumented students access to higher education gave some an excuse to drop out from high school.  Some, regrettably, did not see the point of graduating from High School after the continued failure of Congress to pass the DREAM Act at the federal level.  High School dropout rates are a problem all over the country which affects Hispanics, minorities and immigrant populations in disproportionate numbers. Bad immigration-education policy only makes things worse.

With the introduction of the process for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the opportunity to enroll into a GED program to qualify for application, GED education experienced a sudden increase on demand. Click here for an article on the demand  for GED instruction.

GED stands for General Education Development. The test is administrated by a division of the American Council on Education.  Click here for a link to their site. The administrators are updating the test to spring testers into advancing their education into college and will convert the official GED test to a computer-based version. The service states that the new test "is no longer an endpoint for adults, but rather a springboard for further education, training, and better paying jobs."

For potential DACA applicants it means GED enrollment, preparation and test taking will need to be done before the end of 2013. Any module taken will not count unless the whole battery of test is completed and certification obtained by then.  If the student had only completed certain modules, he or she will need to start all over to comply with the new test on 2014.   Also new fees will be on effect.

This is what the Arizona Department of Education is posting on its website.

Mcpocrisy

Senator John McCain stood up today Saturday, December the 18th, 2010 on the US Senate floor to speak against a legislation that he had co-sponsored in the past, back on the days when he called himself a "maverick" and pretended to be a conciliatory moderate.

Today he lead the parade of anti DREAM Senators who denied a path to legalization to undocumented students who had grown in the USA and succeeded integrating themselves into our communities, many of them professionals with Bachelors and Master's degrees.

During the few weeks that preceded the failed DREAM vote, Mr. McCain's office organized a toy drive for the Holidays.

Awww, how sweet!

I wonder if McCain will check the immigration status of the children receiving the "largess"of the Republican supporters. Thanks to Senator McCain, some immigrant children will be getting a cheap toy made in China and will be denied of a path to legalization as Christmas gift in 2010

Hungry for Justice.

Lucy was in Washington DC on Tuesday, December the 7th, 2010. At the time of this picture she has been 28 days in a hunger strike requesting a meeting with Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson with no success. Lucy wants the Senator to vote YES on the DREAM Act, the narrow tailored legislation that will give a path to legalization to undocumented students brought as children and that fulfill tough requirements. Even tough the Senator supported the DREAM Act in the past, Hutchinson has toughened her stance swayed by the extremist rhetoric that has taken many members of her party hostage: DREAM Act is equivalent to "Amnesty" and rewards "criminals".

Never mind that the DREAM act possible beneficiaries are some of the best and professionally capable citizens this country can wish for.

When Lucy came to Washington, she was debilitated to the point of not being able to walk and was pushed around by fellow dreamers in a wheelchair. She was received in Capitol Hill not by Hutchinson but by her staffers, who ask her to start eating again.

Lucy is not hungry for food but for justice. Her education is worth nothing and she can be jailed in a horrific detention center just because she does not have a social security number.

Her sacrifices for achieving higher education and paying her way to college amounts to zero without the DREAM.

Lucy does not want food but the DREAM,

What Part of Legal You Do Not Understand???

Even before Gov. Jan Brewer signed Bill SB1070, way before, sheriff officers and rogue police from different departments have been stopping brown people under the suspicion of being in the country undocumented and abusing their powers. They have been proving into the immigration's status of Hispanics in hopes to discover undocumented persons and play their power trips and their ethnic grievances. This is what it has been going on in Arizona.

For what I hear their targets are primarily 1.-working class fellows whose English proficiency is not absolute or speak Spanish and 2.-young people even when they are all American. Rogue police officers know they are not fully educated on what their rights are and it is easy to get away with the situation . Rogue police officers are looking to snatch them and sending them to immigration holding tanks.

Some months ago I found a 3^rd generation Hispanic college student who was asked to produce his social security card besides his driver’s license. He left the scene with a sense that the request for a SS# was not right but he was not sure and “consulted” with some friends.

I come across this stories without seeking them. It just comes naturally when I’m going around giving away CADENA’s “Know Your Rights Brochures”.

This week when the community got together to rally with Al Sharpton against prop SB1070, I saw the opportunity to give away 200-updated-version of the Know Your Rights Brochures, half of them in English, half of them in Spanish, printed thanks to a generous donor.

This events are always a great opportunity to speak to people that, under other circumstances, I would not be able to communicate with and opens my vision of what is really going on the streets.

I had the chance to talk to a lady who was stopped by police, questioned extensively, searched in all her possessions, handcuffed and put on the back of a patrol car EVEN WHEN SHE HAS A DRIVER’S LICENSE AND A SOCIAL SECURITY CARD !!!! The reason, the officer did not believe that she was legal in the country, and apparently, she has the name of a person police is looking for or that is what they told her. Police officers look over and over her documents, asked repeatedly if they were false and scratched them on with their fingernails.
What part of Legal do you do not understand???? The searched continued and went into her possessions, the car contents and her purse while she waited handcuffed on the back of the police car. Finally the police gave up and she was dismissed without an apology. The lady speaks broken English and was Hispanic which matches my own description.
She was fighting tears as she recounted her story.

Fortunately this lady talked to an immigrant rights organization and they took pictures of her bruised wrists.
I told her not to remain silent and tell others what it’s going on Arizona even before the implementation of SB1070. Know Your Rights and share the information with others.

Know Your Rights and speak up. This is all we can do.

The immigrant wife

I came to the USA as an immigrant wife. I walked into a church in Monterrey, Mexico in the morning. I presided a small cocktail party at noon all decked in an extravagant dress. I said my farewells to my parents, siblings and friends and by 3:00 pm my husband and I left for the Mariano Escobedo airport.

Still in heavy makeup I arrived to Phoenix, Arizona at 10:00 pm, ready to put my life in a different route and live new experiences. Suddenly it felt like a gamble.

This was the beginning of my life in the United States of America.

My knowledge of the language and customs was more theoretical that practical. Never before that day had I the money to travel beyond a couple of quick trips to shop at the border. At that time my plans were to polish my English and at the completion of my husband Master’s degree, go back to Mexico. I would never imagined that 18 years later I would be still living here and my husband and I would be American Citizens , or that my sons would be Mexican- American, Chicanos.

I would never imagined that I would be fighting to change immigration laws in my adopted country.

My plans at the beginning never involved in bring leadership or notoriety in my life. My plans were to lay low, convinced of my own inadequacies….but life is full of surprises.

For years I followed passively the drama that every day unfolds in the USA. The deaths of those who try to cross the desert, the working conditions of the undocumented, the abuses they have to endure.

Those immigrant stories upset my conscience but I did not see any possibility to do anything about it even it felt really unfair. What can one do to alleviate the negative effect of socio-economic forces, social phenomena??

In time my husband started entering other social realities outside our life. Everything started when he gave his time as a mentor and guidance to high school students in the West-Central Phoenix corridor. He wanted to give the students the message that there were Hispanic engineers working in nice companies and that they also could aspire to a professional life through education. He went to a High School were the majority of the student population is Hispanic and all low income. But then realized an awful truth: “No matter how dedicated, smart and industrious these students are, they are condemned to menial jobs in the underground economy because of their lack of legal status”.

Even more frightening, he realized this young people, having immigrated undocumented as children had no legal standing and were legally vulnerable.

Through his experiences I started to understand the reality of immigrants with less fortune than us. Those who needed to come to this country in desperation to seek a better life and in many cases brought their little ones with them.

These smuggled little human beings were now the High School kids that my husband was encountering.

Those kids crossed the border undocumented at more or less the same time we did and started a new life along with us. Our immigrant lives started to interconnect

The truth is that in previous years these young people would have been able to fix their immigration situation, but not anymore. The laws have been modified and the country have closed the doors to most sometime ago,

The implications of being undocumented are difficult to imagine to those who do not know them. Besides it is easier to believe this country is incapable of treating people, young lives, the way it does.

Without a Social Security Number they cannot work legally and now they cannot attain financial support to go into Higher Education, are exposed to mistreatment, detention, incarceration, deportation to a country many do not remember. Blackmail, Sexual exploitation, human rights abuses may be present at any moment. This young people are condemned to a life with limited aspirations and to live in the shadows of the society that educated them. It is a modernized, sanitized version of slavery.

In this negative environment only a legislative proposal known as the DREAM Act could only open the doors to legalize this youth.

The lack of persons who have the time to speak for them (with the exception of the wonderful mentors we have found along the way) took my husband and I to raise our voices, and in my case, dedicate most of my working time to advocate for the DREAM Act.

From the immigrant wife living on the suburbs I became an activist with goals, and priorities. My main interest is focused on the young immigrants without opportunities and legally vulnerable.

How can I found purpose in mundane –middle class activities if one of these bright students can be literally taken out of the streets, incarcerated mistreated for maybe weeks, months and later deported to a country they do not know if their immigration status is discovered? How the most powerful government on earth can thrown young lives into homelessness??

Now, almost 20 years after I came to this country I’m working to change the society where I live so these young beautiful lives are accepted for who they are, for the content of their character.

To me is ironic that I, an immigrant, am fighting for the soul of this country, for its reputation as the leader of human rights, when still feel so inadequate. However I assume the responsibility with humility and passion. This is a big challenge to anyone but especially for an immigrant wife.