SEIU's latest Dream Act campaign on behalf of Herta Llushlo has generated over 3,700 letter to the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Herta sent the following email to her supporters earlier today:

Dear Friend,

I'm Herta Llushlo, and thank you - for all of the calls made and all the letters written to DHS and ICE on my behalf, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I also want to give you an update on next steps.

First, the good news: I've been issued an order of supervision which means I'm not being deported-- for now.  The reality of the situation is that an order of supervision is not a great position to be in. I have to report back to ICE on November 9, 2009 and learn my fate.

You've helped me buy some time but I'm not out of the woods. We still have work to do to keep the pressure on DHS to not deport me back to the country I left when I was 11 years old.

Can you help me reach my goal of sending 5,000 letters to DHS and ICE? 

I've recorded a special message for you and after you watch it, please sign on to my letter.

I have to tell you that on Wednesday, the day I was scheduled to be deported to Albania, my bags were packed and I had them with me when I reported to the Detroit ICE office.  I truly didn't know what to expect--and I especially didn't expect to see a stack of letters written on my behalf, over 9 inches tall, sitting on the officer's desk.

That's over 3,000 letters!  It's an amazing response and I couldn't have done it without you.

Now, we just need to convince Secretary Napolitano to grant an order of deferred action for me.

Help me reach my goal of sending 5,000 letters to DHS and ICE by clicking here:

http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/dhsrequest4herta

Thank you for all of your support!

Herta Llushlo  

Here's Herta's special message:

DREAM activist Walter Lara sent out an update on where things stand with Herta this morning.

At this point, The Department of Homeland Security and ICE, have still not made a decision on Herta's application for deferred action.

Today, at 10:30 am, EST, Herta will present herself to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Detroit - where she will learn if she stays or if she will be deported.

Secretary Janet Napolitano, Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton, and ICE field officer Vincent Clausen need to hear from you - right now.

Click here to write your letter:

http://action.seiu.org/writedhs4herta

Already, thousands of people around the country have rallied for Herta, writing letters, asking that she be permitted to remain in the United States.

I know Herta would not want us to let up, in fact she's counting on us not to.

Click here to write your letter:

http://action.seiu.org/writedhs4herta

We'll update you again as soon as we learn something new, but in the meantime, keep Herta and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Walter Lara sent the following email out, in support of Herta:

Herta, 19, is being deported to Albania on August 19, 2009. Help us stop her deportation!!

Tomorrow, Herta Llushlo is scheduled to be deported to Albania - her bags are already packed.

You can make sure that doesn't happen.

Can you write in support of Herta Llushlo?

Click here to write your letter to Secretary Napolitano:

http://action.seiu.org/writedhs4herta.

While efforts to pass the DREAM Act continue, ask Secretary Napolitano to defer Herta's deportation.

You saw what we were able to do for immigrant students like myself and Taha - now Herta needs our help.

Click here to write your letter to Secretary Napolitano:

http://action.seiu.org/writedhs4herta.

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Join the facebook group for immediate updates.

Read Herta's story after the break.

SEIU is working in conjunction with Dreamactivist.org again to stop the deportation of Herta Llushlo.

Check out her story and then use our click to call tool to call DHS and ask them to defer Herta's deportation.

In the fight for comprehensive immigration reform, the inclusion and passage of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (also known as the DREAM Act) is paramount to why we need comprehensive immigration reform. The DREAM Act would provide certain immigrant students of good morale character the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency. Immigrant students who came to live in the U.S. as children, have been in the country continuously for at least five years (prior to the bill's enactment) and graduated from a U.S. high school fall into this category.

Herta is one of these students - here is her story:

My name is Herta Llusho, I am 19 years old, and I'm writing this because I'm about to be deported. I was born in Albania and was brought to the United States when I was 11 years old. With the help and support of my family, I have struggled through more than seven years of legal proceedings to find a way to stay in this country legally. Despite our best efforts, on August 19, I will be removed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from the only place I know as my home. I will be sent back to a country that has become a foreign place to me. I don't even speak Albanian well anymore. My only hope of staying here is for as many people as possible to ask DHS to delay my deportation until the DREAM Act is passed.

You saw what we were able to do for immigrant students Walter Lara and Taha Mowla.

Now, Herta needs our help - please use the click-to-call tool now to call DHS and ask them to defer Herta's deportation.

We did it!

Thanks to 24 hours of your calls and faxes, the Department of Homeland Security has done the right thing and deferred action on Taha's deportation.

But we can't stop here--not while 2 million young people who were brought to the U.S. years ago as undocumented immigrant children remain at risk for having their lives in this country cut short and dreams deferred.

Not while we are still in the business of stopping one deportation at a time.

As a result of your actions that resulted in DHS's decision to let Taha stay in the U.S., he will be allowed to finish college and continue his dream to become a pediatrician. Please take a few minutes and send Taha a congratulatory message.

We did it!

Today, Walter Lara was supposed to be sent back to Argentina -- a country that he left when he was 3 years old and has no memory of. But thanks to everyone who rallied around Walter's cause and took action, he's not being deported today.

Here's what grassroots and immigration rights activists did together on Walter's behalf:

• Over 3,000 people co-signed Sen. Nelson's letter
  
• Over 1,000 calls were made to the Department of Homeland Security--so many that their message system was overwhelmed.

Thanks to DREAMer activism, Walter did not have to spend Independence Day saying goodbye to his family. But we can't stop here--not while 2 million young people who were brought to the U.S. years ago as undocumented immigrant children remain at risk for having their lives in this country cut short and dreams deferred. Not while we are still in the business of stopping one deportation at a time.

Here's a message from Walter on how we can clear a path for other undocumented students and support higher education for all students:

To Secretary Janet Napolitano, Senator Bill Nelson, Representatives Corrine Brown, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, words cannot express my gratitude. Their action is an acknowledgment that our immigration laws are broken.

But personal interventions won't help the tens of thousands of others in the immigrant community who stand to benefit from passage of the DREAM Act.

This is why we need Congress to pass the DREAM Act.

Call your Senator right now and ask them to support the DREAM Act.

I was lucky, but the reality is that someone else is being deported today.

Please call them.

Thank you,
Walter Lara

Note: Athena Jones is an home care worker and Grassroots Lobbyist through SEIU's Change That Works campaign.

Students file in wearing colors mixed like an unsolved Rubik's cube--some wearing chords representing achievement and honors. Friends straighten each other's caps. The rainbow of the march is accompanied by a violin and the pomp and circumstances of cameras flashing. As smiles of achievement shine, each student's hard work and the pride of a family is represented with a cap and gown.

You would not notice or look twice at the needs of these high achievers. Each representing the overtaking of a struggle, brandished with the hopes of the Dream.

Onlookers could never have imagined Tuesday's commencement speech to be anything more than a student talking about bridging gaps to adulthood or hoping for the 10 year reunion. As she began to speak - I'll call her Anna - Anna spoke of her graduating from high school with honors and successfully completing college with a double major in biology and psychology. Her parents spoke to her of the hope, of education and the Dream of what America could be. She was the product of undocumented parents. They brought her here under the cover of a better future when she was eight, and she too was undocumented. Anna began to tell of the hurt she felt towards the only country she knew and the many opportunities lost because she does not have a 9 digit number assigned to her name.

Anna is a high achieving, college-educated student with honors. The U.S. government saw her as an illegal immigrant worthy of nothing better than being deported. Her undocumented status shadowed her amazing credentials. I imagine she never knew, regardless of her academic success, her ultimate diploma would be a letter of deportation.

With the U.S. Capitol's Statue of Freedom reaching to the sky behind them, more than 500 students from across the country took part in a symbolic graduation ceremony to urge Congress to pass a bill that would make it easier for them to become citizens and pursue higher education: the DREAM Act.

Fully clad in graduation attire, undocumented immigrant students from Texas, New York, California, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin and beyond marched in this staged mock graduation ceremony, designed to highlight the road block that 65,000 immigrant youth face each year when they graduate from high school--but are then barred from pursuing their dream of attending college because of their undocumented status.

The ceremony was hosted by labor organizations like SEIU, education, faith, business, immigrant and civil rights groups through the United We Dream Coalition (UWD). View this photo slideshow from yesterday's National DREAM Graduation: