By Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos, President and CEO - The California-Mexico Studies Center (CMSC)
March 29, 2022
This week I lost a great friend and Dreamers lost an advocate who will live in history as a colossal legal icon, comparable to the late Marco Antonio Firebaugh.
Like Marco’s AB-540 landmark legislation, Jorge Gonzalez’ historic Writ of Mandamus on April 26, 2021, challenged in federal court the Biden administration’s failure to respond to the CMSC’s demand for approval of 214 Dreamers’ application for study abroad travel permits (DACAS’s Advance Parole), and suspended by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security since September 5, 2017.
Jorge and I became close friends after our first conversation, almost one year ago today when I was referred to him by a mutual friend and another legal warrior for our community, Russell Marco Jauregui.
Even before talking about my dire need for an attorney with a federal court practice, we realized we had so many mutual friends and interests, experienced the same Chicano movement activities over the last 5 decades and we shared a kindred spirit.
Jorge also admired my late brother Mario Fernando Vazquez and we shared a mutual friend and carnal from the 1960’s: Antonio Rodriguez, his legal mentor and advisor.
However, when it came time for the ask, he kindly turned me down because he was already on ‘overload’, had parted with immigration cases a decade before and he was focused on major civil rights cases. But he promised to try to find a colleague.
Yet, he was moved by our Dreamers plight, he praised our 4-year campaign to restore DACA’s Advance Parole permits and knew I had already been turned down by many other mutual friends and colleagues in the legal field for the same reasons.
Russell was no longer in private practice, Peter Schey was snowed-under with the Flores Settlement case and advocating for the release of caged children, and the legendary Jose Angel Gutierrez was unable to practice in a California federal court.
Diligently, Jorge got back to me a week later and informed me that after several attempts, all his colleagues were unable to take on the challenge and he was very disappointed and almost apologetic. That was his nature, personality and demeanor.
But then he shocked me when he said: “Mando, don’t worry. I appreciate your work and the Dreamers’ cause. I have already started the research and will do the Writ of Mandamus. Even if we must file a legal action against a Democrat administration, in order to force the federal government to respond”
And respond they did !!!
On April 29, 2021, only three days after Jorge’s filing of our Writ of Mandamus, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) contacted me to request additional information on all our cases, after approving several cases on that day.
Jorge and I reacted to a critical need that called upon us to ‘cause good trouble’ in the tradition and practice of Congressman John Lewis, and we responded to a growing Dreamers concern that I was failing to secure their Advance Parole permits.
With Jorge’s legal representation and advocacy, the CMSC was successful securing all the Dreamers’ Advance Parole permits and facilitated the legal, safe and COVID-free return of all 214 participants in the CMSC’s Summer 2021 Dreamers Study Abroad Program, and almost 300 more during our 2022 summer & winter programs.
UNDOUBTEDLY, JORGE WILL REST IN PEACE AND IN POWER !!!
Abogado del pueblo Jorge Gonzalez: PRESENTE !!!
