Fronteras.org

Our higher education system and amateur athletics community are losing another top college wrestling prospect to the horde that is WWF, er, I mean the WWE.  Well, that’s not entirely true, top high school wrestler Ofelia Valdez has not announced a deal with Vince McMahon or that’s she’ll be fighting under the name “Cyclone”.  Sadly though, she did announce that she is unable to pursue a college education because she entered the United States as a 2 year old when her family immigrated here illegally.  Because of her status and lack of a social security number, Valdez is forced to turn down the wrestling scholarship offered to her by Oklahoma City College.  She is also unable to apply for FASA student loans, and thus cannot afford to go to a college.

Her situation highlights the problems that children of immigrants face, when their parents come here illegally.  Her brother told Dallas’ News 8 “I was an American…that’s all I considered myself ever since I was younger. There’s nothing that changed until I hit a lot of walls when I graduated. Tried to go to school, tried to go to military, like I said, a lot of closed doors.”

The Athletic Director at her high school is speaking with a United States senator about options for Valdez, but until the DREAM ACT passes, there doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do.  However, the school’s wrestling coach is considering adopting Valdez and her brother in order to get the brother and sister into college in the fall.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.