Matias Ramos Faces Deportation
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Matias Ramos |
On February 9, 2010, UCLA graduate Matias Ramos was detained by Immigration and Customs Enformcement when he was attempting to board a plane in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is currently facing deportation. Matias is the chair of United We Dream, the national network of undocumented immigrant student organizations, and the former cochair of the UCLA undocumented student organization IDEAS. He worked as a Public Allies intern at the UCLA Labor Center before moving to Washington, DC, in April 2009, and for almost a year has been a volunteer Dream Act advocate and a leader of the immigrant youth movement. He has appeared on national CNN news and has testified on Capitol Hill on the issue of undocumented immigrant students.
The UCLA Labor Center is engaged in a national campaign to educate the public at large about the challenges facing undocumented immigrant students and to stop student deportations.A group of Labor Center interns has been using the Labor Center publication, Underground Undergrads: UCLA Undocumented Immigrant Students Speak Out, which features Matias on the front cover, as a tool to raise awareness on undocumented immigrant students. The Labor Center will also be offering the course, “Immigrant Rights, Labor, and Higher Education” for the second year in a row to address these issues.