Time is fast running out for Honors Student, Walter Lara, scheduled to be deported July 6

LatinaLisa — It wasn’t that long ago that we featured the story of college graduate, Benita Veliz, a honor student who had been arrested by San Antonio police and sentenced to start deportation proceedings.
We learned last month that Benita can stay in the U.S. for another three months until her fate is determined.

Student Walter Lara is to be deported July 6, 2009.
Unfortunately, time is fast running out for yet another honors student. His name is Walter Lara and he only has 5 days left to convince Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to let him stay in the only country he has ever known as home.

Walter, 23-years-old, grew up in the United States after his family immigrated to Miami from Argentina when he was three years old.

Lara received top scores in high school and college. After graduating from Miami-Dade Honors College in 2007 he became a computer technician.

Since it became known that Walter is going to be deported on July 6, 2009, unless Sec. Napolitano intervenes and defers action on his deportation, Florida politicians and supporters nationwide have been issuing emails and calls to Sec. Napolitano’s office to halt his deportation.
US Senator Bill Nelson has drafted a letter on Walter’s behalf to Sec. Napolitano requesting that they defer action on Walter’s deportation because “he has earned the chance to live and work here and call America home.”
A nationwide plea has been made asking for people who support Walter to add their names to the letter. It will be delivered tomorrow, Thursday, July 2, to the Department of Homeland Security.
Walter is a prime example of what we want all of our young people to become — educated and productive members of society.
Sending Walter back to Argentina when he grew up in the U.S. is a misguided case of trying to enforce the law 20 years too late — long after Walter grew up seeing himself as an American citizen.
it’s time Sec. Napolitano put a moratorium on all deportation proceedings involving students who meet the DREAM Act criteria until Congress definitively decides on the fate of all those students who dream that this country will believe them when they say they are American in every sense of the word, except on paper.
To keep up with the stressful turmoil Walter is handling with such grace as he now sets up television interviews and makes personal visits to members of Congress to plead his case, you can follow him on his Twitter page.
It may be legal to send Walter back but it’s an injustice that violates the moral conscience that all countries must govern themselves with to maintain a true definition of justice.