Students Fight to Keep Teachers in the U.S.
Va., Md. Instructors Lose Appeals to Stay
By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 26, 2006; B04
There is a group of sixth-graders at Arlington's Gunston Middle School who love their science teacher so much that they regularly eat lunch in her classroom and stay late after school to work on projects with her.
"She has taught me so much," said Kallan Moore, 12. "She's inspired a lot of people to go into careers in science."
"She cares about everyone," said Dana Warnecke, 11.
"She does cool projects," said Sloane Mebane, 12. "Like next year, she wants to do a weather club, so even the seventh- and eighth-graders she's had [in past sixth-grade classes] can participate."
But that might not happen. The teacher, Luz Chamorro, is a native of Colombia who came to the United States in 2000 on a cultural exchange visa. The visa stipulated that she had to return to her country after three years, and the U.S. government is telling her that it is time to go.
Chamorro said she intended to return after three years, but in 2002 she married a U.S. citizen and changed her mind. For three years, she has been trying to get a waiver so she can apply for permanent residency and continue teaching at Gunston.
Her students have tried to help by circulating petitions throughout the school. And parents have written to the State Department and their congressmen.
But two weeks ago, she learned her last appeal was denied.
"I really was shocked that the lawyer, when he appealed, was turned down," she said, adding that she believes the recent national attention to immigration issues might be making her case harder. "So are they trying to be stricter on it? I don't know, but it seems that way. In the past, you would know that if you married a U.S. citizen, you get your residency" permit.
Most foreigners who marry U.S. citizens while on a visitor visa can adjust their status without leaving the country. But if they overstay a J-1 visa -- the three-year kind Chamorro has -- they must leave the United States to apply for a family member visa even if they marry a citizen, said Michael Defensor, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On rare occasions, the U.S. grants waivers -- for example, if the return home would constitute extreme hardship to the family. Chamorro has argued that her husband, a freelance photographer, would suffer hardship in Colombia because of the country's high crime rate and poor pay for photographers. But Defensor said an extreme hardship would have to be something such as a medical condition that cannot be treated in the home country or a situation where a person's life would be in danger.
Chamorro came to the United States through the North Carolina-based Visiting International Faculty Program, which brings teachers from around the world to work in U.S. schools for up to three years. Teachers with the program sign a pledge to return to their country for at least two years afterward.
Most return to their countries within three years, said Ned Glascock, a spokesman for the program. "The idea is that teachers and others who qualify come for three years to teach about their cultures and then return home and share everything they've learned," he said. "The cultural exchange goes full circle, and they become cultural ambassadors for our country."
Since the program began in 1987, it has brought 7,000 teachers to the United States, he said, adding that "99.9 percent" of them have returned to their countries. "We're very clear with our teachers that it's not a program that's intended as a means of immigration to the United States," he said.
But parents say Chamorro, who teaches sixth-grade science in Spanish in the language immersion program at Gunston, would be hard to replace.
"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a qualified teacher to teach sixth-grade science, and to teach it in Spanish, and have students yearning -- I mean, they compete on their projects," said Walter Mebane, Sloane's father. "My daughter . . . stays up till 11 or 12 at night because she doesn't want to disappoint Miss Chamorro."
Chamorro is not the only visiting teacher in the area on a J-1 visa to have been embraced by a school, only to be ordered later to leave.
Jose Ruiz, a native of Spain who has taught Spanish at Walt Whitman High School in Montgomery County for three years, learned Thursday that his appeal to stay an extra year had been turned down.
Ruiz, who came on a visiting teachers exchange program through his embassy, said that he had no desire to stay in the United States permanently but that after a difficult first year he needed an extra year to truly benefit from the program and to repay the school for what it had taught him.
"Now I know how to teach, so I owe the community this," he said. "I just need one more year to give them what I got back."
Parents have written to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and students at the school have signed petitions and worn bracelets reading, "Save Ruiz. A good teacher is a terrible thing to waste." A caseworker from Van Hollen's office said Friday that the State Department said the extension would be almost impossible to get.
Each year since 2003, Chamorro has applied for, and received, a work permit allowing her to continue teaching at Gunston. But her current permit expires in October, and she fears that because her appeal has been denied, she will not be granted another.
Several parents have written letters to Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), asking him to intervene. Austin Durrer, a spokesman for Moran, said the office had received the letters and was awaiting paperwork from Chamorro.
Chamorro said she will meet with an immigration judge this year to learn her fate.
Mebane said he hopes the decision falls in her favor. "I'm for stronger borders; I'm for all that," he said. "All we're saying as a community here is please look at this on an individual level. . . . This is not the kind of person that we want to send back to another country."
So let me get this straight, hundreds of thousands of illegals who bring crime and poverty with them to the states get citizenship or "exceptions" (funny that these are the ones who work manual labor or jobs nobody wants to do) but this lady actually an asset to our society and they want to give her the boot.
ucking: If she could throw a fastball 95 mph (Cuban defects), housekeep or work at a construction site for $4 an hour, they would probably let her stay.
Va., Md. Instructors Lose Appeals to Stay
By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 26, 2006; B04
There is a group of sixth-graders at Arlington's Gunston Middle School who love their science teacher so much that they regularly eat lunch in her classroom and stay late after school to work on projects with her.
"She has taught me so much," said Kallan Moore, 12. "She's inspired a lot of people to go into careers in science."
"She cares about everyone," said Dana Warnecke, 11.
"She does cool projects," said Sloane Mebane, 12. "Like next year, she wants to do a weather club, so even the seventh- and eighth-graders she's had [in past sixth-grade classes] can participate."
But that might not happen. The teacher, Luz Chamorro, is a native of Colombia who came to the United States in 2000 on a cultural exchange visa. The visa stipulated that she had to return to her country after three years, and the U.S. government is telling her that it is time to go.
Chamorro said she intended to return after three years, but in 2002 she married a U.S. citizen and changed her mind. For three years, she has been trying to get a waiver so she can apply for permanent residency and continue teaching at Gunston.
Her students have tried to help by circulating petitions throughout the school. And parents have written to the State Department and their congressmen.
But two weeks ago, she learned her last appeal was denied.
"I really was shocked that the lawyer, when he appealed, was turned down," she said, adding that she believes the recent national attention to immigration issues might be making her case harder. "So are they trying to be stricter on it? I don't know, but it seems that way. In the past, you would know that if you married a U.S. citizen, you get your residency" permit.
Most foreigners who marry U.S. citizens while on a visitor visa can adjust their status without leaving the country. But if they overstay a J-1 visa -- the three-year kind Chamorro has -- they must leave the United States to apply for a family member visa even if they marry a citizen, said Michael Defensor, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On rare occasions, the U.S. grants waivers -- for example, if the return home would constitute extreme hardship to the family. Chamorro has argued that her husband, a freelance photographer, would suffer hardship in Colombia because of the country's high crime rate and poor pay for photographers. But Defensor said an extreme hardship would have to be something such as a medical condition that cannot be treated in the home country or a situation where a person's life would be in danger.
Chamorro came to the United States through the North Carolina-based Visiting International Faculty Program, which brings teachers from around the world to work in U.S. schools for up to three years. Teachers with the program sign a pledge to return to their country for at least two years afterward.
Most return to their countries within three years, said Ned Glascock, a spokesman for the program. "The idea is that teachers and others who qualify come for three years to teach about their cultures and then return home and share everything they've learned," he said. "The cultural exchange goes full circle, and they become cultural ambassadors for our country."
Since the program began in 1987, it has brought 7,000 teachers to the United States, he said, adding that "99.9 percent" of them have returned to their countries. "We're very clear with our teachers that it's not a program that's intended as a means of immigration to the United States," he said.
But parents say Chamorro, who teaches sixth-grade science in Spanish in the language immersion program at Gunston, would be hard to replace.
"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a qualified teacher to teach sixth-grade science, and to teach it in Spanish, and have students yearning -- I mean, they compete on their projects," said Walter Mebane, Sloane's father. "My daughter . . . stays up till 11 or 12 at night because she doesn't want to disappoint Miss Chamorro."
Chamorro is not the only visiting teacher in the area on a J-1 visa to have been embraced by a school, only to be ordered later to leave.
Jose Ruiz, a native of Spain who has taught Spanish at Walt Whitman High School in Montgomery County for three years, learned Thursday that his appeal to stay an extra year had been turned down.
Ruiz, who came on a visiting teachers exchange program through his embassy, said that he had no desire to stay in the United States permanently but that after a difficult first year he needed an extra year to truly benefit from the program and to repay the school for what it had taught him.
"Now I know how to teach, so I owe the community this," he said. "I just need one more year to give them what I got back."
Parents have written to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and students at the school have signed petitions and worn bracelets reading, "Save Ruiz. A good teacher is a terrible thing to waste." A caseworker from Van Hollen's office said Friday that the State Department said the extension would be almost impossible to get.
Each year since 2003, Chamorro has applied for, and received, a work permit allowing her to continue teaching at Gunston. But her current permit expires in October, and she fears that because her appeal has been denied, she will not be granted another.
Several parents have written letters to Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), asking him to intervene. Austin Durrer, a spokesman for Moran, said the office had received the letters and was awaiting paperwork from Chamorro.
Chamorro said she will meet with an immigration judge this year to learn her fate.
Mebane said he hopes the decision falls in her favor. "I'm for stronger borders; I'm for all that," he said. "All we're saying as a community here is please look at this on an individual level. . . . This is not the kind of person that we want to send back to another country."
So let me get this straight, hundreds of thousands of illegals who bring crime and poverty with them to the states get citizenship or "exceptions" (funny that these are the ones who work manual labor or jobs nobody wants to do) but this lady actually an asset to our society and they want to give her the boot.
ucking: If she could throw a fastball 95 mph (Cuban defects), housekeep or work at a construction site for $4 an hour, they would probably let her stay.
