Detained UC Berkeley student granted bond
Immigration authorities had held 20-year-old for nearly three weeks
An immigration judge on Wednesday ordered a UC Berkeley student who has been held by immigration authorities near San Diego for nearly three weeks to be released on $1,500 bond.
Luis Mora, 20, and his girlfriend had been driving close to the Mexican border on Dec. 30 when they took a wrong turn and found themselves at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. Mora — who was born in Colombia and had entered the U.S. legally as a child but overstayed his visa — was detained. His lawyer, Prerna Lal, tweeted that she expected him to be released sometime Wednesday and asked for privacy.
The news sparked an outcry among student activists at Cal — who pushed for Mora’s release and raised money through a crowdfunding site — and among local elected officials, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
On Wednesday morning, Lal tweeted that she was waiting to pay the bond money. That will allow Mora to return to Cal for classes while he waits for his immigration hearing. UC Berkeley students returned from winter break this week and the political science major has already missed a couple of days of the new semester.
In a joint statement, UC President Janet Na-
politano and UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said, “In solidarity with his many friends and supporters, we urge that his case be expedited and that he be provided with a path to permanent residency and citizenship in the United States. Our national interests are not served by forcibly returning him to his country of birth, where he has not resided since the age of 11. Our national interests are served by nurturing the talents of all members of our diverse community
regardless of status.”
Even if Mora’s ordeal ends on a positive note, UC Berkeley’s response to his arrest has drawn criticism from student activists, who say the school has not done enough to help undocumented students.
Christ waited more than a week after Mora’s arrest to comment on the case, saying she was limited by “student privacy laws and UC policy” on what she could say. But she promised that her administration was working to help Mora. However, a student group called Rising Immigrant Scholars through Education pushed back at that notion, saying Christ
waited too long to speak out and has failed during her tenure to adequately support programs for undocumented students.
“To date Berkeley students — specifically, members of RISE staff — and many others around the country have done remarkable work to secure the student’s freedom, and we support their efforts,” Napolitano and Christ said in their statement. “The University will continue to take every appropriate action to support the ongoing efforts to achieve a just and equitable outcome for him and other members of the UC community who may be impacted in the future.”
In an op-ed, the student newspaper’s editorial board echoed the criticism, writing, “Campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore previously told The Daily Californian that the campus is working ‘behind the scenes’ to help secure Mora’s release. But invisible efforts aren’t enough. Now is the time for public action, and the UC Berkeley administration — which has repeatedly expressed support for the undocumented community — should proudly lead the charge.”
It’s unclear exactly what the future holds for Mora. He is not eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which
grants some young undocumented immigrants permission to remain in the country without fear of deportation, because he arrived in 2009, two years after the program’s cutoff date.
Congressional leaders in Washington, D.C., have been talking about extending protections for Dreamers, as students like Mora are known, but no firm plans have been worked out and the Trump administration has taken a hard stance on immigration, promising to deport people in the U.S. without permission.
On Tuesday, a Detroit man with no apparent criminal record who was brought to the U.S. as a child and lived in the country for three decades was forced to return to Mexico after immigration officials promised to deport him.
Student activists at Cal say they think officials are trying to make a display of holding Mora and others.
“More than anything, I think they’re using him as an example,” Valeria Suarez, co-chair of Rising Immigrant Scholars through Education, told this news organization in early January, “to try to punish him and punish other immigrants to instill fear.”