Lehigh Valley residents push for citizenship for young immigrants

High school graduation is a time of joy for most teenagers, but it wasn for Palmer Township resident Angel Diaz.

She served as a student senator and ranked in the top 10 percent of her graduating class at Easton Area High School last year. But while most of her classmates were making plans for their future, Diaz felt she couldn an undocumented immigrant, her options were limited.

Instead, she enrolled at Northampton Community College, where she become class president and hopes somehow she be able to attend a fouryear school after she cheap jerseys graduates in May.

Diaz and others like her are who 65 Lehigh Valley residents rallied for tonight. Members of the local chapter of Organizing for Action say immigrants who came to the United States as children deserve citizenship.

brought here to this country by their parents through no fault of their own, Allentownbased immigration lawyer Kevin Santos said. they can live normal wholesale jerseys lives. local Organizing for Action chapter supports providing citizenship to the country 11 million undocumented immigrants but believes focusing on those brought here as children is a more obtainable goal, said Jose Campos, the chapter immigration team leader and a Bethlehembased immigration lawyer. House of Representatives plans to consider the Senate immigration bill piece by piece, and is expected to first take up the issue of immigrants brought here as children, Campos said.

Other reports say the House plans to take up border security first, and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee last week spoke out against citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, according to The Associated Press.

Bethlehem Area School Board Director Aurea Ortiz said she been pushing for legal status for immigrants brought here as children, adding she seen too many Bethlehem graduates unable to go to college because of their immigration status. She said President Barack Obama executive order in 2012 to stop deporting most young immigrants helped some, but more should be done.

of theses men and women are fighting for our armed forces and graduating in the top of their class, but they still living in the dark as secondclass citizens, she said.

Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan and Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr. also voiced their support for citizenship cheap nfl jerseys for immigrants who came to the country as children. Both said their cities have long histories of contributions from immigrants.