Angel Armendariz-Galindo wasn’t born in Great Bend; his family left Mexico when he was 10 months old. But, like Nobel Prize winner Jack Kilby, he claimed Great Bend as his boyhood home, and graduated from high school here. Now, after wrangling with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly four years, the 23-year-old man is on the verge of getting his Green card.
During an immigration court hearing Thursday in Kansas City, a judge granted Armendariz-Galindo’s application to stay in the United States and become a permanent resident.
Soon he should be able to get a permanent residency card, or Green card, and permit to work, said his attorney, Robert Feldt. "In five years he can apply for citizenship."
ICE started removal proceedings against Armendariz-Galindo in 2008, after he was caught driving without a license – impossible to get without a Social Security number. Although he can’t remember ever living anywhere but the United States, for years he faced the possibility of being forced to move to Mexico, with or without his wife and two children.
Things are working out for Armendariz-Galindo, but Feldt said many GBHS graduates could find themselves in the same predicament. Although the number of undocumented immigrants attending school here is unknown, he said Armendariz-Galindo’s situation is not unique.
GBHS Principal Tim Friess wrote a letter of recommendation for the former student to show the judge, and over the years he’s written similar letters for other students, he said. However, neither Friess nor Assistant Superintendent Dan Brungardt, who oversees migrant programs for Great Bend USD 428, knows how many students in the school district are here illegally.
"We don’t ask," Brungardt said. The state requires the school district to provide an education to children who live here, but it doesn’t require it to ask about their citizenship. And the district no longer asks parents for Social Security numbers, for reasons unrelated to residency documentation. The district doesn’t want to have that kind of information on file to tempt computer hackers, Brungardt said.
In October, ICE Director John Morton announced that 396,906 people – a record number – were deported in Fiscal Year 2011. Locally, Feldt said problems for immigrants with Green card issues have become more serious in the last three or four years, in spite of Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign promise to address immigration reforms. Among other things, he pledged to bring people out of the shadows by allowing undocumented immigrants in good standing a way to become citizens.
"Obama has not done what he promised to do," Feldt said. "It’s been a big disappointment."
