Jose Antonio Vargas: Immigrant hero
- Last Updated: 4:39 PM, February 15, 2013
- Posted: 12:03 AM, February 15, 2013
Jose Antonio Vargas — the Pulitzer Prize winner who admitted in 2011 he’d spent decades hiding as an illegal immigrant — said it was “surreal” testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration this week. “I was sitting next to the people whose job it is to deport me,” Vargas told us. “And they were smiling and shaking my hand.” He was sent by his mom from the Philippines to live with his grandparents at 12, and learned as a teen he was undocumented. He said of illegal immigrant-bashers, “Basically they’re saying I should ‘go home.’ Home where? My apartment in Union Square? Or Mountain View, Calif.?” The former Washington Post writer who covered politics said, “The time for extremism is over. Let’s have the real discussion.”
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Jose Antonio Vargas
