Maryland’s Future: Higher Education for All Students! Support SB 167 and HB 470
Name: Javier Age of Arrival: 12 I am Javier Mendez, born in Mexico City, Mexico. I crossed the border into the U.S. when I was 13 and rebuilt my life in the country I would come to call home. I am a second year student at Prince George’s Community College, preparing to transfer to the University of Maryland, College Park, to complete my engineering degree and to settle down Maryland permanently.
There is even a bit more to my story that I would like to share. I am also Corporal Javier Mendez of the United States Marine Corps. I served my country from 2005 to 2009 as part of the Marine Second Battalion, Third Marines, Third Marine Division, with two tours of duty as part of Iraqi Freedom, one in Haditha, Iraq, and the second in Fallujah, Iraq; as part of Operation Enduring Freedom I served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
I strongly, no passionately, support the Maryland Dream Act. Given the chance, a lot of immigrant children will contribute to our country and to our state. My parents had legal status here and thus I was able to turn from undocumented to permanent legal resident and in 2007 I was proud to take the oath to become a United States citizen. So, I stand before you to testifying today not for myself, but on behalf of many hard-working undocumented students I know who would help Maryland’s economy grow and prosper.
When I was discharged from the Marines and returned to Maryland, I often got up early and drove around the largely immigrant communities of Riverdale and Bladensburg. On weekday mornings at 5, 6, or 7 AM, I would see hundreds of hard-working immigrants catching rides or waiting for the bus to take them to work. Many have two, or even three, jobs. My parents, aunts and uncles, and cousins all have jobs working construction, cleaning offices, ringing cash registers, and washing dishes and like many immigrants they know that despite their hard work they will never get rich. But like many Americans, they push their children to study hard and succeed where they have fallen short.
As someone who has literally dodged enemy fire for my country, I am deeply saddened by how the best of and brightest of our immigrant children, many of whom had no real choice to emigrate, have been attacked by opponents of this bill.
Finally, I hope you will overlook my nervousnesstoday, I wished that someday I might be testifying before you about high-speed rail transit from Cumberland to Ocean City, or perhaps on plans to expand the Bay Bridge, but this issue is so important to me that I wanted to speak out now. The Marines is a brotherhood, we all worked together and no one cared where you were born or what languagesyou spoke at home. The spirit of working together for a common
good is, for me, the best part of America, and I witnessed many close comradesdie in battle for that common good. With them in mind, I ask you to vote for the MD Dream Act, becauseit represents not America’s fears, but America’s promise.