Peccados Deportados con El Señor Miguel

In the immigrant justice system, indigent clients are represented by two groups of people: the non-profit attorneys who argue the cases for peanuts and the interns who try to prove that somehow, some way, the firm's clients are being chased by El Chapo. These are their stories.

*METAL CLANGING SOUND*

So since graduating from college in May, I've been waiting out the economic crapstorm by volunteering to advance La Causa. My mission: trying to keep people from being deported to Mexico, a.k.a. 300 feet *that* way. I'm going on my fifth month at the center now. I got a T-shirt y todo, and if I roll up the sleeves I can show off my slowly growing but still pathetic arms. 'Sta bien chida.

Most people would find the ins-and-outs of immigration law to be boring. But me, I like to think of my volunteer work like it's all part of some primetime novela. Think Law and Order: La Raza. Granted, we don't get to carry guns or have intense dialogues, but some of the shit we pull would make Jack McCoy himself say WTF?

In the 400-plus volunteer hours I’ve logged as Kirk the Law Slave hotshot legal assistant Miguel Hakim de la Santisima Trinidad, I have done the following things:

• Compiled a 300-page cancellation of removal case that hinged on menopause being considered an “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship." The judge didn’t bite, but he did admit it was a valiant effort after he ordered my client deported. (As an aside, I hope I NEVER have to hear the phrase “submucosal fibroid” EVER again. *Shudder*)
• Worked on an appeal involving a Somali guy who is not a pirate.
• Wrote bitchy motions to the Department of Homeland Security arguing that embezzlement – if it WAS indeed committed *scoff* – isn’t REALLY a crime of moral turpitude.
• Talked my way out of going to a client's house at a nun's behest when she explained that there might be a slight possibilty that her jealous boyfriend might stab me. Yeah. Nuns work at our office
  
• Caught myself using scare quotes when referring to things like “good moral character” and “national security exceptions under FOIA law”
• Translated Arabic documents containing phrases such as “in the service of building our Eritrean homeland,” “trusteeship of our departed martyrs,” and “victory to the masses!”
• Sat in and listened to various people claim that the Juarez Cartel/La Familia/La Linea/Colombian coke lords/the Mexican military/the Mexican police/the FBI/Santa Claus are out to get them and they need asylum
  
• Learned how to use phrases like "esteeee" and "oye, dame la account number, yeah?"

All in all, this is just another one of those things on my resume that means I will never be able to run for President or get a government security clearance. Lord knows that working there, chances are I've met someone knows a guy who knows a guy who shoved another guy into an oil drum full of diesel fuel and set him in on fire because he owed Vicente Carillo Fuentes a Snickers bar.

And in spite of all that -- I kind of like it. Sure, my family is probably sick of hearing about "the system" and I should talk about other things. But the fact is that the gym isn't exactly a hotbed of activity, the gossip well from Alma Mater has run dry, and any and all crazy nights out are protected as privileged information under the Bro Code. Plus I'm at that age where I have to start watching what I say and being "respectable" and "discreet" and whatnot. As a result, Kirk's tawdry stories will go untold online, but Miguel Hakim will keep on fighting the good fight.

So yeah. In conclusion, que viva la raza!

(EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: DICK WOLF)

The Drug War Hits Home

Kind of a weird day. My mom got a whole bunch of calls this morning from her friends asking if she had "heard the news." Apparently a Mexican journalist from Durango with our last name was kidnapped and executed by Los Zetas.

Almost every Antuna can be traced back to a few villages in Durango, including my grandfather. She called him up, and from what he can gather, the man was definitely a relative. Not one of my close ones -- likely he's a second cousin once or twice removed and none of us had ever met him.

But still, it's a little weird to know that your family isn't immune to bullets from the cartel wars. I'm proud of my Mexican heritage. I treasure it. I love our language, our art, our culture, and our values. That being said, I'm glad my grandfather chose to immigrate to the U.S. I know how fortunate I am to live in a country with an imperfect but functional justice system, and that I grew up in safety. I'm also glad to know that I come from good blood, that my family is on the right side of all this, and that there are people who are braver than me and willing to stand up and speak the truth.

I'm a pretty liberal guy, but I'm conservative about drugs. Stuff like this is why. Prove to me that not a dollar from a drug's sale is going into the hands of thugs and criminals in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Laos, and frankly, I don't care what you put in your body or what you do with your spare time. But for as long money from a "harmless" drug like pot funds corruption and killings, I don't believe that people have an inalienable right to get high.

People talk about Baghdad being scary. People talk about how the prospect of an al Qaeda attack keeps them up at night with worry. Frankly, all the Islamists in the world are chump change compared to the narcotraficantes of Mexico. A few clerics twisting the words of the Quran and shouting "Death to America" don't scare me a bit. Osama bin Laden kills in the name of God. These guys kill in the name of money. And that's what really scares me. "God" can get people to fly an airplane into a building once. Money can make people kill every night.

I'm off my soapbox. I don't know why this really got to me, but it did. R.I.P. Jose Bladimir Antuna Garcia. I never knew you, but you died a martyr's death trying to make sure people knew the truth. I take pride in knowing that we share blood, and I hope that if God one day grants me salvation, I can finally meet the man who stood up and did what was right -- because it was right.

En el nombre del Padre y del Hijo y del Espiritu Santo. Amen.

EDIT (9:12 A.M.) Associated Press story as run by the El Paso Times