I first met Jose Antonio Vargas in the fall of 2008, in the midst of the historic Obama campaign for the presidency. At the time, I was a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where I was researching the impact of the then-emerging social media on older legacy forms of journalism, such as newspapers.
A woman named Maralee Schwartz was also at the Kennedy School when I was there. Beginning in 1979, Maralee had spent her entire professional career at the Washington Post, largely as a political reporter and political editor. As national political editor, she led the Post's award-winning teams of reporters in coverage including three presidential elections, the last term of the Clinton White House, and the first term of the Bush White House.
As a "lifer" at the Post, and like many of her peers at the time in the so-called "mainstream, media," Maralee was, shall we say, extremely wary of the new media. When she heard upon our first meeting that I was researching how social networks were affecting journalism, for example, she promptly fired back, "Social networks? You mean those places online people go to get dates?"
Despite her pronounced skepticism, Maralee was still open enough to at least consider the possibility that there might be something to my seemingly wild contention that social media would have a major impact on the way journalism would be practiced in the near future. A few weeks after we met, she knocked loudly on my office door, and when I opened it, literally shoved a young man in. "This is Jose Antonio Vargas," she announced. "He gets what you're doing!" And then she marched off, leaving Vargas in her considerable wake.
We spent the next hour talking, and I quickly ascertained that Maralee was right -- this guy really did get it! Quick, articulate, savvy and full of energy, the 27-year old immigrant from the Philippines had already been part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Post -- and he certainly seemed poised to attain even greater honor and success in the near future, pursuing a career that had already taken him at a still tender age (to me at least!) near the pinnacle of establishment journalism...
Vargas then surprised me by proceeding to castigate his employer as completely behind the curve and mired in a rapidly fading past glory. "These guys don't understand," Vargas complained. "They should fire most of the editors and hire a bunch of graphic designers and online journalists," he announced with the impatience and brashness of youth.
I realized immediately that Vargas, whose Pulitzer participation came about when he cleverly used social media like Facebook to break news about the Virginia Tech campus massacre, was exactly the sort of young, hip and connected reporter places like the Post desperately needed in order to make the transition to a new digital form of journalism. I also realized that Vargas probably was not long for that world.
In short order he did walk away -- from what, in an earlier era, would have been seen as the opportunity of a lifetime -- in order to join the online upstart Huffington Post. He was among the first, in what soon became a wave, and then a tsunami of journalists, who were abandoning major media platforms like the Post, the New York Times and national television networks to work in a new form of journalism online.
In the years that followed, Jose enjoyed great success at HuffPost, and also began freelancing for major national magazines, including writing a landmark piece for the New Yorker about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. A series of articles he had written about H.I.V./AIDS became a documentary film called "The Other City," which opened at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and was broadcast on Showtime -- and along the way, Jose also came out as gay and wrote movingly about how he could and would no longer keep secrets about who he was and how he felt.
But despite his many amazing successes, Vargas still felt incomplete. Now we know why.
In an incredibly moving and important piece in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, "My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant," he has just "come out" again -- this time bravely and dangerously revealing that he is an undocumented immigrant, who has lived in the shadows since arriving in the USA in 1993 as a 12-year-old. Yes, this young man, on the fast track to attaining the putative American Dream. has now exposed himself not as "American" -- but as "other."
Jose Antonio Vargas is incredibly brave to risk everything he has accomplished in this country in order to tell the truth and to shine, yet another but still much-needed, light on the pressing need for comprehensive immigration reform in this country. He, and millions like him, have much to contribute to America -- and without people like them, our country will be far poorer.
If there isn't room in the United States for people like Jose Antonio -- the precise type of people who made this country great -- I despair for our collective future. I urge you to read his inspiring story, and then to take action to ensure that Jose Antonio -- and the many others like him -- aren't forced to choose between hiding in the shadows or risking it all by telling the truth.
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Jose Antonio Vargas: Bearing Witness, A Tweet At A Time
Jose Antonio Vargas: I Am An Undocumented Immigrant (VIDEO)
Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas Comes Out as an Illegal Immigrant ...
Author Rory O'Connor isn't doing Vargas any favors here.
There's been nothing but layoffs in thew newspaper business for ten years. When you think of all the help Vargas got from older established journalists, both professionally and personally, as described in his own words in the New York Times, it kind of makes you sick to realize how cold blooded this guy can be.
He asks for our compassion for himself but in the meantime, he's eager to see his older print journalist colleagues out on the street. Out with the old, in with the new -- which is him, who isn't even supposed to be here.
Isn't that nice?
'The Times featured full-color photos of Vargas' fake document trove—including a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a Social Security card his grandfather doctored for him at a Kinko's. He committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. Following the rules would have meant a 10-year bar to re-entry into America. Making false claims of citizenship is a felony offense. Document fraud is a felony offense.
Vargas, who frames himself as a helpless victim, freely chose instead to secure yet more dummy documents. He used a friend's address to obtain an Oregon driver's license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House—where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number.'
It's very odd that people are celebrating a multiple felon who probably won't be prosecuted for his identity fraud.
http://www.history.com/videos/ellis-island-registering-as-an-american-citizen#ellis-island-registering-as-an-american-citizen
If you want to see fight, go to a third world country. Take Ukraine for example. The legal definition of poverty is an income of $50 or less PER MONTH. 25% of the population is in poverty.
According to the United Nations, one half of the globe lives on less than $2 per day.
We are taking back Olympic medals from liars....we should take his Pulitzer Prize back too...he lied. We are erasing the existence of these medalists from the history books....because they lied. This is no different and he deserves no better treatment that anyone of lies, cheats, and steals their way into the psyche of a nation that would make him a "hero".
Sir, you standards are very low for "hero-dom".
Now what?
His behavior patterns are indicative of someone waiting for another blanket amnesty (like what Reagan signed in 1986) instead of someone aware of the implications of the bigger issues. My apologies, but in the current political climate, that is not likely to happen. Even a Republican president inaugurated in 2013 would not get a bill out of the Tea Party-controlled House. The climate for passage would be much harder than now.
As long as we continue to allow people to sponsor extended family members -- parents, brothers and sisters, we'll continue to get swamped by millions of people participating in an endless chain migration. I don't blame the immigrants for wanting everybody to come here. It's up to us to change our laws and communicate by word and by deed that because we've lost so many jobs that aren't coming back and our population is rapidly growing, we are going to cut our annual immigration numbers.
Identity Crimes - Identity crimes are defined as the misuse of personal or financial identifiers in order to gain something of value and/or facilitate other criminal activity. The Secret Service records criminal complaints, assists victims in contacting other relevant investigative and consumer protection agencies and works with other federal, state and local law enforcement and reporting agencies to identify perpetrators.
Identity crimes investigated by the Secret Service include, but are not limited to, the following:
Bank Fraud (Opened account with false documents, Vargas?)
False Identification Fraud (Drivers permit, and SSN by Vargas)
Passport/Visa Fraud (Traveled about the world on false documents?
Counterfeit and Fraudulent Identification - The Secret Service enforces laws involving counterfeit and fraudulent identification which means, where someone knowingly and without lawful authority produces, transfers or possesses a false identification document to defraud the U.S. Government. (IF he obtained ANY education funds from government, Vargas) The use of desktop publishing software/hardware (USED a copier and "thin strip of white tape" by Vargas) to counterfeit and produce different forms of identification used to obtain funds illegally remains one of the Secret Service's core violations.