PATH for DREAMS provided free DACA screening to undocumented Fil-Am students: TFC Balitang America

Providing Access To Hope for DREAMs.
Reported by Telly award-winning journalist Don Tagala of TFC Balitang America.
ABS-CBN News

NEW YORK – Patricia Abella came to the US when she was only seven years old. The 23-year-old business management student says she never knew she was undocumented until she couldn’t get state issued ID’s and driver’s license.

Abella said, “Growing up my mom would tell me, don’t tell people you don’t have papers, they’re going to take you, don’t open the door, that might be immigration coming, someone’s going to get you, so she instilled that fear in us just try to be good in school and hopefully, once you get good education, you can get your papers.”

Abella’s undocumented sister got married last year and was able to legalize her status.

Patricia, who is openly gay, was asked to do the same–she was told getting married is the easiest way to legalize her status. But same-sex couples still do not enjoy immigration benefits.

“But even If I get married I can’t do this (legalize status). Damn, even that to make me happy, I can’t do it,” said Abella.

Juan Bangcaya came to the U.S. when he was two years old. The 25-year-old theatrical technician said he never knew he was undocumented until he turned 16 and applied for a driver’s license.

“That’s when they laid the news on me that I was undocumented, whatever, from then on I sort of didn’t care anymore, like college didn’t matter, so, I was destroyed, all my college dreams were gone, can’t go to college, can’t get the loans,” said Bangcaya.

Like many “Dreamers” these Filipinos call themselves “undocumented Americans.” They may not have the necessary papers but they were raised as Americans in the only country they know.

Now, thanks to President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA), these undocumented Filipino students have a chance at temporary legal status and a chance to get a job legally.

Both have applied for the DACA program thru the help of the Filipino American Legal Defense and Education Fund (FALDEF) and the Philippine Consulate in New York. It’s only a matter of weeks before they would find out if they qualify for DACA.

If granted temporary legal status Abella said, “I’m going to get my license, which is my dream, ever since I was young I just wanted to drive a car.”

“It’s one step forward to being normal,” said Bangcaya.

While Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not directly address what he will do for the 12 million or so undocumented immigrants during his speech at the Republican National Convention, the 2012 Republican Platform opposes Obama’s DACA, the Dream Act or any form of amnesty.

The GOP’s top immigration priority includes supporting a “humane procedure to encourage self-deportation,” said the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

These Filipino dreamers are hoping that if the President gets re-elected, Obama will work on his 2008 campaign promise of passing a comprehensive immigration reform as well as passing the Dream Act – the legislation that would legalize undocumented students and provide them a path to citizenship.

DACA-eligible Filipinos can take advantage of the “Path for Dreams Program” provided by the Filipino-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Philippine Consulate in New York –

A free DACA screening will be held at the St. Mary’s Church in Jersey City, New Jersey on Saturday, September 22, from 9 am to 4 pm.

REACTION FROM 2 FILIPINOS: Obama unveils new immigration doctrine

WRITTEN BY EDMUND M. SILVESTRE ,, Filipino REPORTER

The White House caught some shadowy immigrants off guard, particularly the so-called “dreamers,” when in the morning of June 15 it announced that President Barack Obama would issue an executive order allowing over 800,000 qualified undocumented young immigrants to remain in the United States and obtain work permit.

John Quidilla, an undocumented 24-year-old Filipino who previously lived in New York before his family settled in Plano, Texas, was still asleep when he received a text message from a friend who told him to watch the news.

“This can’t be happening,” Quidilla recalled telling himself while hearing for the first time the breaking news.

“Na-surprised ako...it’s so surreal,” he told the Filipino Reporter in a phone interview last Tuesday.

“My mother and siblings are all excited for me. They have been supportive of me all the way...they are my strength.”

Jose Antonio Vargas Featured in Time Magazine

"Inside the world of an ILLEGAL immigrant." - Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas as featured in Time Magazine, June 14, 2012

Click HERE to read the story.

Gulfins won't board plane to Philippines

The Gulfin family of Tinton Falls, N.J. will not board the flight that will send them back to the Philippines on Sept. 30, as the Filipino American Legal Defense and Education Fund (FALDEF) asked U.S. immigration to hold in abeyance the deportation until it decides the fate of the Filipino family in light of a new federal policy ordering authorities to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” on removal proceedings and suspend deportations of those who pose no threat to national security or public safety.

“We’re not defying the U.S. immigration,” declares the Gulfins’ counsel J.T. Mallonga, who heads FALDEF.

GULFINS’ PRAYER WARRIORS: Part of the large crowd at Sunday’s prayer rally in in Eatontown, N.J. to save the Gulfin family from being deported.  (Photo by Matty Morallos)

“We’re simply requesting authorities to provide us answer on our request for deferred action status on the basis of the memo of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief) John Morton, and endorsed by President Barack Obama.”

Mallonga said the Gulfins — Carmelo and Aurelia and their son Miguel Rodrigo — will report at JFK International Airport for their scheduled departure on Sept. 30.

Here since 7 yrs. old, he’s told to leave U.S

Exclusive to the Filipino Reporter

Almost all his life, Miguel Gulfin called the United States home.

He was only seven when his parents brought him to the U.S. in 1991.

He completed grade school and high school in New Jersey and at one point pursued a college degree in communications, where he was on the Dean’s List.

Until recently, he served as president of the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) and regularly participated in its mission trips to as far as Florida to do evangelization work among students.

But Miguel, now 27, is undocumented and, through no fault of his own, the U.S. Government wants him out of the country.

Worse, it also wants his parents, Carmelo and Aurelia Gulfin of Tinton Falls, N.J., out for overstaying.

They have a final deportation order and were given until the end of September to pack up and leave.

Miguel is not alone.