Tuesday, October 6th, 2015 | TechNeWS campu5@technewsiit_com I a: I“: i : EEI 3

Undocumented Students and Allies seminar sheds light on Advanced Parole

Ahha Dalmia
TECHNEWS WRITER

Undocumented Students and Allies
(USA) is a student organization that seeks to
spread awareness about the diversity of undoce
umented students and current immigration
talk to the IIT community It was founded in
2011 by Maria Gonzalez (‘14, Sociology) and
Daniel Garcia (‘12, Material Science and Engie
neering) as a safe space on our campus for uni
documented students to pursue an enriching
education, regardless of their status Four years
later, the organization maintains this same
mission by partnering with various IIT dep art,
ments and Chicagoland organizations for pro,
gramming and initiatives geared towards the
needs of one of IIT’s most underrepresented
groups of students, Most notably, recent initiae
tives include their “Drop the IeWord” Came
paign to have the entire IIT community pledge
to use the word “undocumented" instead of
xenophobic and legallyeinaccurate terms such
as “illegal" or “alien," and their annual Coming
Out the Shadows spring semester event, dure
ing which members of the organization share
their stories of self and demand IIT’s depart,
ments be held accountable for actions unfavore
able towards the community

For those who are new to this con
cept, undocumented students are students
who entered US without inspection or entered
legally but overstayed their visa, remaining in
the US without authorization Most students
who fall into this category were brought by
their parents at a young age and have stayed
here ever since They have lived and attended
school in the United States for most of their
lives, but at present, lack a pathway to become
permanent residents or citizens of the US

The organization frequently organize
es seminars to disseminate information about
changes and opportunities within immigration
proceduresi One of their latest seminars took
place on Wednesday, September 30th 2015
from 779 pm at the John T Rettaliata Engie
neering Center Auditorium, This particular
seminar was about an immigration document

called Advanced Parole (Form 17131) that al
lows students who have been approved for
President Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy to lawfully
reeenter the US after traveling abroad, even
though Customs and Border Protection Ofiie
cers (CBPO) at US porteofeentries still hold
ultimate discretion to allow reeentry DACA is
simply a policy that allows students who en,
tered the US before June 2007 and before their
16th birthday to receive a 2eyear work permit
and stay exempt from deportation

The seminar started with a sump,
tuous Mexican dinner that was catered from
Carbon Mexican Grill This was followed by an
overview of Advance Parole benefits and the
application process by the main guest speaker,
Mony RuizeVelasco, an immigrant rights attore
ney and activist of over 18 years who owns her
own law firm, Law Office of Mony RuizeVelase
co, and represents immigrant families, LGBTQ
immigrants, as well as other vulnerable popula
tions, such as unaccompanied minors and sure
vivors of domestic violence, human trafficking,
and other crimes In short, she explained that
Advance Parole is available to students travel,
ing for humanitarian, educational, or employ,
ment purposesi She covered the various docu
ments required to apply for Advance Parole,
the most important being a valid passport She
also explained on how to obtain the evidence
for the purpose of travel and gave tips on how
to prepare and what documents to keep before
traveling abroad to ensure a smooth return
The attendees then discussed the certain spe
cial circumstances under which an application
for Advance Parole might go unapproved, like
a prior criminal record that may prove to be a
barrier

The highlight of the event was the
firstehand experiences that students shared of
their trips using Advance Parole to travel to
countries outside the US, Cindy Agustin, Out,
reach Coordinator of the National Immigrant
Justice Center (NIJC), an organization that
frequently partners with Undocumented Stu,
dents and Allies to host DACA renewal infor
mation sessions on campus, was the first one

to share her experience of going back home to
Mexico City for a week as part of a “Dreamers"
conference, after a gap of 23 years! She covered
how their group had to go through an addie
tional inspection with rude and disrespectful
CBPO officers and how they dealt with the
discrimination that made them feel powerlessi
She explained to students the importance of
informing and communicating with friends
and family, even if through Facebook, that
they had landed in the US and were going to
go through immigration, just in case there was
some problem needing community organize
ing to solve She also shared with students the
repercussions she faced due to her mistake of
leaving one of the two Advance Parole docu
ment copies she received at home and how she
solved it

Carlos Roa, a 5th year architecture
student at IIT also shared his experience of
traveling using Advance Parole He shared
how his entry back to Chicago had been rela
tively smooth despite having to go through
the depressing and dreary walls of the second,
ary room for additional inspection The last
speaker of the night was Egle Malinauskaite, a
3rd year Biomedical Engineering/preemed stu
dent and President of Undocumented students
and Allies, who went to Ecuador this summer
for community service with IIT’s chapter of
MEDLIFE (Medicine, Education and Develop,
ment for LoweIncome Families Everywhere),
She reflected on how she felt thankful for the
lifeechanging experience, but at the same time
upset on how she had been given preferential
treatment through immigration just because
of the color of her skin She believes that be
ing an undocumented student should not stop
anyone from travelling and missing out on in,
credible experiences similar to the one she had
When asked about the reason behind conduct,
ing a seminar on advanced Parole, Malinause
kaite said that “my own Advanced Parole ex,
perience instilled a duty in me to inspire others
to travel and having the support of the Study
Abroad’s office is a crucial step in making sure
students feel comfortable’i Any undocumente
ed student at IIT traveling with Advance Parole

can rest assured they will get full support from
Undocumented Students and Allies, especially
should they face any trouble reeenteringi

The sharing of personal experiences
helped to familiarize students who might be
traveling with Advanced Parole of the possible
scenarios they might face when reeentering
and how to overcome them by advocating for
oneself, as well as reaching out to the come
munity for support, In addition, anyone who
has encountered or heard of discriminatory
treatment by CBPO when using Advanced Pa,
role can submit a summary to a case example
database created by NIJC, United We Dream
(UWD), and Immigrant Legal Resource Cen
ter (ILRC), (https://ilrc1formstackicom/forms/
cedicbp), thus advocating for better treatment
of Advanced Parole recipientsi

Since traveling abroad as an undocue
mented student is a very practical opportunity,
the session attendees were very involved and
asked great questions for detail clarification at
the end of every speaker’s presentation When
Malinauskaite was asked what could have been
improved, she responded that had they more
time, the organization would love to put to
gether and share with attendees some of the
international opportunities that students can
take advantage of However now she will make
sure that information is disseminated with the
support of the Study Abroad Ofiicei She also
expressed her appreciation that Elizabeth Hall,
Coordinator of Study Abroad, took the time
out to attend and learn about the Advanced
Parole process, and even expressed interest in
partnering with USA for developing resources
to help undocumented students find opportu
nities abroad based on their personal interests,

At the end of the seminar, everyone
was pleased with the turnout at the event and
in Malinauskaite’s own words, the one thing
she hopes people took back is that “Sure, ap
plying for Advance Parole presents a risk, but it
is one of the most worthwhile and lifeeaflirme
ing risks one can take as a student, especially
when coupled with all the extracurricular,
educational, and career opportunities IIT has
to offer"

Petition to seek inclusion of Rave Guardian app in ||T's safety strategy

Reno Waswil
TECHNEWS WRITER

Safety is obviously a huge concern
on this and all other college campuses Our
Public Safety does what they can, but many
times it is difiicult to get in contact with them
and in certain situations, it may be inconvee
nient or even impossible to That is why better
and more assured methods of communication
between and among students, faculty and staff,
as well as campus and city emergency respond,
ers are always welcome

One option that Student Govern,
ment Association (SGA) President Rahul V
Wadhwani sees as a potentially immensely
beneficial resource is the Rave Guardian mo,
bile safety application, which is a method cur
rently in use at over 100 colleges in the coun
try, including the University of California Los

Angeles, Dartmouth College, and the Univer
sity of Tennessee,

Rave Guardian is powered by a na
tional safety database called Smart9111 In,
formation from this database is displayed to
Campus Safety as well as to Smart911 enabled
911 centers when you contact them This in,
formation can include family member contact
information, photos, medical conditions, dis,
abilities, addresses, even pets, and anything
that a user feels like it would be important for
someone to know about them in the case of an
emergency

The app is free to download, and
will allow you to connect directly with 911,
police, emergency responders, or “Personal
Guardians” Personal Guardians can be trusted
friends and family as well as campus safety of,
ficials that users can interact with through the
number of features that the application allows

One of these features is called a
“Safety Timer” This is a timer that users can set
when they plan on going away for set periods
of time If the timer expires without the being
deactivated, then the app will notify the Peri
sonal Guardians to check up on them

Another feature of the app is that it
allows for “Tip Texting," through which users
can send anonymous, twoeway text and image
tips to Campus Security in the case that they
see something suspiciousi

Rave Guardian’s panic button allows
students to contact 911 personnel and allows
campus safety to immediately see their GPS
location and their Smart911 data for rapid re,
sponse to emergency situations This app cone
nects directly to 911 with a voice call, the caller
of which will be clearly identified, The GPS lo,
cation available will also include schematics of
the buildings and the layout of the campus to

help safety responders locate the caller in need,

There are most certainly benefits
to the partnership with the school, including
the previously stated connection directly to
campus safety as well as more integrated schee
matics of buildings and a wider base of users
to increase the security of the greater campus
community Also, student information pro,
vided by the school, such as class schedules
and family contacts, which will only be avail,
able when students establish that they are in an
emergency, will be more readily available to re,
sponders via the school’s student information
system

In the next few weeks, SGA will be
advertising and petitioning for the inclusion of
the app as part of IITs safety program There
will be advertisements along the MTCC Bridge
and on social media and SGAs other internet
platformsi

Galvin Library partners with Shimer College
for Banned Books Week celebratory read out

Reno Waswil
TECHNEWS WRITER

Banned Books weeks, as the Ameri
can Library Associations’ (ALS) website reads,
is meant to “highlight the value of free and
open access to information" by celebrating
books that have historically been challenged,
banned, or kept from the general public for
some reason or another It is typically held the
last week of September, and libraries across the
country celebrate this week with events that
criticize acts of censorship and promote open
publication for all literary works

Last Thursday, IIT’s Galvin Library
teamed up with Shimer College for a banned
book read out, located in the Upper Level,
Northeast Corner of Galvin

Students (mostly Shimer students)
and library staff gave short readings of the
sorts of works that were censored, banned, or
otherwise kept from the public eye

There was no standard procedure
for those that were performing readings that
night, but the precedent that was set early on
was that each would give a little background
on the story, what category of censorship it fell
into, and why they chose it

The titles that were read include the
poem by Nikki Giovanni from her book “Black
feeling, Black talk, Black judgment" entitled
“NikkieRosa,” a passage from “A Past Revise
ited" by Filipino Historian Renato Constane
tino, an expert from Chicana/Feminist Theo,
rist Gloria Anzaldua’s semieautobiographical
work “Borderlands," from a chapter entitled
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue," and an undee
livered speech written by Indian politician B
R Ambedkar called “Annihilation of Caste?’

One of more interesting readings
was by alibrary staff member about a paper en,
titled “An elastic tube theory of pulse transmis
sion and oscillatory flow in mammalian artere
ies" by John R Womersley The audience was

taken through a trip where the reader asked
the audience to imagine themselves as math,
ematicians on ahunt to find this paper that has
been referenced in a number of other works
written for an audience of physicians This was
document, as it turns out, was subjected to
limited distribution, which means that though
it is unclassified as far as scientific papers are
concerned, the government can keep it from
being openly distributedi Luckily, due to eff
forts made by the library to the Department of
Defense, they were able to get the study digie
tized, and a digitization of Galvin’s own copy
is now available on their website This presen
tation was concluded with a passage from the
abstract of this paper

The final three readings were from
an Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir called
“Fun House," Vladimir Nabokov’s famously
provocative novel “Lolita," and a passage from
The Quran, which emphasized the tolerant as,
pects of such a historically censored work

The ending remarks included rue
minations about a controversy over this year’s
Banned Books Week bookmark, which was
scattered atop the tables around Galvin The
first draft displayed a woman’s eyes peek,
ing through a space on the bookmark, one
who just so happens to be of Italian ethnicity
looked very much like a woman’s eyes peering
through a Hijab. Not wanting to give the wrong
impression, the woman’s eyes were removed
for a more plain design This instance certainly
offered an interesting and ironic perspective of
what is a sort of censorship in media

The totality of the event was record,
ed for use by Shimer College for the promo,
tion of the event, and because of that, all non
Shimer Students who participated had to sign
releases to be in their video Hopefully, these
readings will be made available at some time
soon through the Shimer website for all those
that couldn’t be there