MISSION — The recent suicide of an illegal immigrant fanned the flames of a controversial measure to legalize certain students who were sneaked into the country as children, prompting, among other things, a Friday morning ceremony in Los Angeles and a proclamation on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
But in the 11 pages of suicide notes that Hidalgo County investigators released to the family of Joaquin Luna on Friday, there's not a single mention of immigration or of the failed federal Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, as was mistakenly reported by various news outlets.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said he could not release the notes, which an investigator found in a Bible, until the investigation confirmed the case indeed was a suicide.
“What really bothers me is that there's somebody out there attempting to exploit this poor young man's decision to commit suicide and try to politicize it with failure of the DREAM Act and immigration issues,” Treviño said.
Still, family members and supporters said Friday that they believe the pressures of his legal status was a contributing factor to the decision to take his life.
His oldest brother, Diyer Mendoza, said Luna was disappointed when the DREAM Act failed in Congress, as he was about immigration policy battles in Arizona and other states. He said Luna, a high school senior who planned to attend college, also was painfully aware that even with a degree, he wasn't legal to work.
“It all contributed,” Mendoza said Friday. “He was living it — flesh and blood — because he was one of them.”
Luna, 18, was by all accounts a serious student, excelling in mathematics and envisioning a prosperous future as an architect or engineer.
He would have been the first in his family to finish high school and the first to attend college. He also was the only one in his family who was here illegally, having been brought to the country at 6 months old.
The day after Thanksgiving, Luna dressed in a suit and tie, made some phone calls, apologized to his mother, and then went into a bathroom and shot himself.
The series of handwritten notes he left were to family, friends, teachers, and, in Spanish and in English, to Jesus Christ.
In them, he asks for forgiveness for failing to make them proud. He wishes classmates in the school's guitar ensemble well, and bequeaths his high school letter jacket and truck to siblings. He thanks a long list of teachers.
To Jesus, he writes that he knows he will be an engineer in heaven. He also writes that teenagers face bad things and temptations and that he didn't want to succumb.
Mendoza told investigators Luna was growing increasingly despondent as he received letters from top colleges asking him to send documentation of citizenship.
He told local media the same thing. The story went viral, and many pro-immigration groups began using him as a symbol of why the DREAM Act should be passed.
Another brother told investigators that Luna recently failed the written portion of a civil engineering test he felt was crucial for his plans. Treviño believes it was that test that threw him into despair.
Mendoza on Friday said that even if the letters didn't mention immigration, he was sure it was part of the pressure that led his brother to the act. He said the big colleges, like Michigan, Rice, and Baylor, wanted papers and his Social Security number.
While Luna would not have been alone among undocumented students at the nearby University of Texas-Pan American, his goals were bigger.
U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa presented his “Urge Support for the DREAM Act-Honor the life of Joaquin Luna,” speech to Congress after speaking with family, said Hinojosa's spokeswoman, Patricia Guillermo.
Greg Selber, a mass communications professor at the University of Texas-Pan American, said the media may have jumped on the story too soon.
“There was a little bit of slippage between what the (suicide notes) said ... and what the family may have interpreted them to be, on the basis of hearsay,” he added.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposed the DREAM Act, said that whatever the reasons for Luna's decision, using it to try to change national policy designed to limit immigration was reprehensible.
“It ought to direct questions to the parents,” he said. “You brought your son to this country, you knew that he was going to be living here as an illegal alien ... and yet you did it anyway.”
Jorge-Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles, said Friday morning's “New Dawn for Joaquin” ceremony drew nearly 100 people, many of them undocumented students like Luna.
He said he'd spoken with Luna's family members since they got the suicide notes and felt comfortable going ahead with a demonstration that called attention to the hopelessness that students in Luna's situation feel.
“We did have a beautiful opportunity to hear different students talk about how they felt in similar positions, like giving up completely, but they kind of stuck through it, and encourage others to not let themselves go like that,” he said.
One who would urge for hope is Benita Veliz of San Antonio, who last month learned a three-year-old deportation case against her was being closed.
Veliz, who holds two degrees from St. Mary's University, was outspoken about the DREAM Act, sharing her story in demonstrations and with media.
Friday, she said that though the pressures of reaching adulthood as an undocumented student were extreme, she didn't think immigration status alone would be enough to push someone over the edge.
“There's still a lot of ignorance,” she said. “People don't know that there are a lot of opportunities for undocumented, that there have been for years. As limited as we are, as difficult or as challenging as it becomes because of our status, at the same time there are still opportunities for people to do something with their lives.”
Friday, December 2, 2011
DREAM Act not in suicide notes Youth's kin say its failure contributed.
10:03 PM
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