President Obama's June "Morton Memo" Saves Dreamers & Workers from Deportation and SAVES Dreamer Benita Veliz!

This month, Benita Veliz was SAVED from Deportation by President Obama's "Morton Memo" which saves Dreamers and Workers from Deportation. Benita is a 24-year-old college graduate from San Antonio who works in a church office. She is smart, self-sufficient and hard-working. She is bursting with academic and professional ambitions — DREAMS that were set aside because her paths to achieve them were temporarily shut down as she and her Immigration attorneys pleaded her case.

Benita arrived from Mexico with her parents in 1993 on a tourist visa. She was small child of 8 when she arrived and has lived nowhere else since. By any standard, Benita is an American, a Texan. She is also valedictorian of Jefferson High School. She graduated at 16. She went to St. Mary’s University in San Antonio on a full scholarship. She double majored in biology and sociology and fully deployed herself beyond the classroom in clubs, student government and choir. She volunteered in a children’s hospital. And she waited tables 45 hours a week in a Mexican restaurant.

Benita's honors thesis was about the Dream Act. The Dream Act: a Congressional bill that allows students to earn citizenship after going to college or serving in the military. Though the Dream Act was NOT passed due to Nay Votes by ALL REPUBLICANS plus 5 Rogue, Blue Dog Democrats, the President and the "Morton Memo" of June, 2011, saves young students like Benita.

Benita's immigration troubles began in January, 2009. A police officer pulled her over, saying she had rolled through a stop sign. Benita explained, that while she did not roll through the stop sign, she does acknowledges driving without a license. She had a Mexican consular identity card, and after a series of questions, the officer called immigration authorities. She was jailed overnight and released on bond. Her immigration lawyers said Benita met some of the requirements that might have allowed her to stay in the United States. She has been here more than 10 years and is demonstrably of good moral character. But without a qualifying parent, spouse or child to petition on her behalf, initially she was told she could not stay. Many of Benita's supporters petitioned for her support. Benita even took her case to You Tube. In video testimony on YouTube filmed in 2009, Benita said she had "absolutely no family in Mexico" and knows "absolutely no one" in Mexico. She suggested courts take into account how young she was when her parents brought her to the U.S.
Now, thanks to President Obama, Benita was spared deportation earlier this month under deportation guidelines established by the Morton Memo on Prosecutorial Discretion, issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this past June.

But Benita's troubles are far from over. Benita still can't get a work permit — to apply for one, she'd have to leave the country and face a 10-year ban before she could come back — and the government can at any time pick up the deportation proceedings right where they left off.

Still, Benita was jubilant after her court hearing Wednesday morning. “This is my home, this is the only place I've known. I'm ready to work in the United States. I'm ready to give back to my community.”

TO ALL OF MY READERS:
BENITA IS ONE EXAMPLE, BUT THERE ARE COUNTLESS OTHER STUDENTS AND WORKERS, JUST LIKE BENITA, WHO LOVE OUR COUNTRY AND BRING SO MUCH VALUE! THEY ARE STUDENTS. THEY ARE SOLDIERS FIGHTING FOR OUR FREEDOM. THEY LOVE OUR USA!
MR. PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS -- PLEASE -- PASS THE DREAM ACT!!!!