Student stopped from continuing to University, is to walk to DC in protest
December 23 2009 by Liam Clifford
A 26-year-old from Indiantown plans to walk from Miami to Washington DC in protest at US immigration rules.
Manuel Guerra Casas has been forced to withdraw from his University course at Kaplan University and pending court proceedings into the immigration case he may also be deported back to Mexico.
Guerra Casas came to the Sates at age 17. He says he navigated a river from Mexico into the US near the town of Laredo in Texas. His reason for wanting to leave Mexico was that he wanted to attend school in the US and escape gangs in his hometown.
The deportation process began when he tried to apply for a driver’s license in 2003, because he had no US visa. The first deportation hearing was in 2006.
Every year thousands of high-school graduates are unable to continue into higher education because of their US immigration status in the States. The walk aims to raise awareness about this while also urging the White House to approve new legislation entitled the DREAM act. The proposed legislation would put such students on a conditional path to US citizenship if they completed a college degree or served two years in the military.
The walk begins on January 1 as four young people start the 1498.97 km journey from Miami; it is hoped that they will be joined by 100,000 US immigration reform supporters at the finish in Washington DC sometime in March.
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