Jose Vargas : "Coming out as gay in high school wasn't nearly as dangerous" as coming out of the closet as an "Illegal Alien" .... "The irony is that I had to come out to be unemployed" - Moralities and Journalistic Ethics

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"He refers to the "underground railroad" of secret allies and assistance, but his was like a posh lounge car, not a grape field". - 

Jose Antonio Vargas, staff writer at The Washington Post, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former senior contributing editor for The Huffington Post, has revealed that he is an undocumented immigrant.

How many "Successful Americans" are "Undocumented Immigrants" or "Illegal Aliens" in racist parlance ??

This is important because President Obama favors Comprehensive Immigration Reform, some millions of "Undocumented Immigrants" will be given temporary residence and some of them may acquire citizenship after many requirements, fines, exams, periods of time, etc ..

San Francisco Chronicle -
I was duped by Jose Vargas, illegal immigrant -
By Phil Bronstein
June 22


I was duped by Jose Vargas, illegal immigrant


Some excerpts :

He says he's flabbergasted to be the story instead of reporting it. "The irony is that I had to come out to be unemployed," he says, now that he won't be able to get a legitimate job; his only financial support comes from his new organization's backers. Coming out as gay in high school wasn't "nearly as dangerous." While close friends knew his sexual orientation, they didn't know he was here illegally.

He's now freed from the fear that cut into his pleasure over his many successes - a documentary screened at the Tribeca festival, the Zuckerberg get. But the future is, as they say on TV news, uncertain. He complains about his Times mug shot but revels a little in their proposed magazine headline: "OUTLAW." He's just barely 30.

For me, despite the subterfuge, he's done what he intended: given a surprising, articulate and human face to an important issue for at least some of those millions of people out there floating in terrifying limbo. For me, it's the face of a friend

Like many successful young people blessed with talent and brains, Jose has a healthy dose of hubris. He'll have to watch that as much as he will the approaching footsteps of ICE enforcers.

But if he can come out, the force of his story - both good reaction and bad - and his project just might lubricate the politically tarred-up wheels of government and help craft sane immigration policy. If it has that effect, we should forgive him his lies.

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