NEWSBYJACKIE MAHENDRA

This week, Jennifer Lopez (the Dreamer, not the pop star) and her family received incredible news: the DREAM Act-eligible young woman who faced deportation was granted a reprieve after more than 38,000 people signed her petition on Change.org.

The campaign was started by a Florida-based youth organization called Students Working for Immigrant Rights and Manuel Guerra, a Dreamer who successfully fought his own deportation on Change.org and had never met Jennifer Lopez in person. Student activists say that under recent guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security, Lopez did not meet the criteria for deportation because she had no criminal background, was brought to the country as a young child, and continued to care for two critically ill and handicapped siblings, both of whom are U.S. citizens.

“Today is one of my best days ever,” said Jennifer Lopez, upon learning that her deportation would be canceled. “I'm very grateful for the opportunity to stay here with my family who needs me. They are everything to me. I know that this would not be happening without the help of Manuel Guerra and my lawyer Richard Hujber, organizations like Students Working For Immigrant Rights and United We Dream, and all the people who took their valuable time to read and sign my petition on Change.org. ”

If you're reading this post, your best friend may be a Dreamer. Or maybe you are one of the tens of thousands of people living with a loved one in detention.  You could be trying everything to keep your family together.

Whatever your situation, if you are fighting the detention or deportation of a loved one, you are certainly not alone. Immigrant youth first pioneered the use of public campaigns to cancel the deportation of their friends, family, and community members years ago, but the past few months have seen dozens of these types of campaigns taking off on the Change.org platform, as new deportation guidelines are emerging in the United States.

If you are still deciding whether to launch a public campaign around deportation, you will need to consider a few things very carefully. First, before you do anything else, make sure the individual facing deportation has a good immigration lawyer who has filed for discretion with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If the individual doesn’t have a lawyer, click here to find one before starting your campaign. If you need a pro-bono (free/low-cost) option, try this list. Without a lawyer, it will be virtually impossible to win what’s called a “stay of deportation."

This video will walk you through the steps of setting up or fully launching your campaign on Change.org:

At just twenty-one years of age, Balal Parveez has been through more than most. Once the well-loved captain of his high school football team in Long Island, New York, he is now suffering behind bars in immigration detention following chest surgery in Florida, a thousand miles from his U.S. citizen wife (pictured here) and family.

Balal's sister, Nosheen Dean, is a U.S. citizen and aspiring doctor who, like Balal, was brought to the U.S. as a child to escape the family's political persecution in Pakistan. Now, between schoolwork and family duties, she is working around the clock to get her brother released from ICE detention and restored to health. She started a fast-growing petition on Change.org outlining why Balal deserves immediate discretion, instead of deportation to a country where his life is in danger because of his father's political views.

It turns out that, while all nine of Balal's siblings attained citizenship status after the family gained political asylum, Balal's papers did not come through because they were attached to another claim. This is because Balal was brought by his aunt to the U.S. before the rest of the family, which became a paperwork nightmare. We got in touch with Balal's sister, Nosheen, to hear how the family was doing late last week.

"I spoke to my mom a few minutes ago and she said Balal called her. She said he could not talk long, he was in pain, and was sitting on the floor so he could talk. He talked for only a few minutes and then hung up because he had to go lay down from the chest pain. I can't believe it -- he just had surgery on his chest, can barely walk, and is in extreme pain, and they sent him back to a jail the same day. But I'm going to stay strong and keep my parents strong, too, so we can fight this."

Wow. Just weeks ago, UCLA graduate and award-winning Dreamer David Cho posted a petition on Change.org commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the federal DREAM Act and asking President Obama and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to do everything in their power to stop deporting talented youth who had been brought to the US at a young age and want nothing more than to give back to the country they call home.

It was the same demand that four determined youth first made as they embarked on their historic 1,500-mile trek from Miami to DC known as the Trail of Dreams, over a year ago now. It was a plea that Congressman Luis Gutierrez and dozens of U.S. Senators made directly to President Obama in the aftermath of the latest DREAM Act obstructionism in Congress.

Cho argued, "While the possibility of passing the Federal DREAM Act seems slim to none this year, President Obama himself can take action through executive power. With the stroke of a pen, the President can halt the deportation of all DREAM-eligible students... For many, this is  the only country they have ever known...  It is a terrible waste of federal resources and an abuse of human rights to prosecute these young  people, to deport them, and to separate them from their family and  friends."

Well, today David and thousands of courageous Dreamers who have put their lives (literally) on the line in some cases to push for immigration reform have cause to celebrate a hard-won and historic policy shift by the Obama Administration.

Wow. Just as momentum for pulling cities and states out of the federal government's so-called "Secure Communities" program appeared to be reaching a fever pitch, today the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it will cancel the more than 40 agreements it had signed with states and territories to share data under the S-Comm program. Instead of scrapping or overhauling the controversial program, however, the Obama Administration is attempting to make it mandatory under a legal loophole.

“Once a state or local law enforcement agency voluntarily submits fingerprint data to the federal government, no agreement with the state is legally necessary for one part of the federal government to share it with another part,” reads the letter.

Big news today out of Springfield, Massachusetts: yet another city council has rejected the controversial S-Comm program. “S-Comm” is shorthand for the federal government’s “Secure Communities” deportation program, which has come under fire in recent months for the way that it breaks apart innocent families, targets victims of violence, and erodes community policing efforts by making immigrants fearful of reporting crimes.

Springfield joins LA and Montgomery County, Maryland -- as well as Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts -- in wanting out of the flawed S-Comm program. In fact, the news comes as Boston community activists prepare to deliver thousands of online petition signatures collected by Change.org and Presente.org, calling for an end to the dangerous deportation program in Boston.

The delivery is part of a "Pro-Migrant Day of Action" that includes both anti-S-Comm advocacy and support for the Massachusetts in-state tuition bill that is moving forward this week.  Here are the details for the S-Comm petition delivery:

WHEN:       12 pm ET, Wednesday, July 20, 2011

WHERE:     Boston City Hall

It is critical that we remember to stop to celebrate our victories as a community of individuals pushing for change. Celebrating success helps us to reflect on what worked and reminds us that together we have a powerful voice. Earlier this month, Massachusetts immigrant advocates scored a major win when they successfully removed eight of nine anti-immigrant amendments from the Massachusetts state budget. This, after weeks of intense advocacy that included a petition on Change.org started by the Student Immigrant Movement, major call campaigns, and even mulit-week, round-the-clock vigils on the steps of the Massachusetts state house.

According to the MIRA blog, "On Friday, July 1, the Massachusetts state legislature voted to pass the state budget for FY 2012 and submitted the budget to Governor Patrick for his signature. This Conference Committee version of the budget did not include 8 of the 9 anti-immigrant amendments that were included in the Senate version of the budget and granted funding for many budget priority programs."

Did you catch last night's Colbert Report? If not, check out the video below the jump. Not only did Jose Antonio Vargas hold his own against Stephen's satirical anti-immigrant attacks, the two had a few moments of amusing banter. What was your favorite bit? Mine was a toss-up between Stephen calling Jose a "border gay" and when he asked what exactly Vargas meant by "Define American," the name of the project he left his journalism career to launch.

"Sounds like someone asks you if you're American, and you're like "DEFINE AMERICAN!" (gestures aggressively).

As promised, Vargas also brought the voices of his 90,000 supporters from the Define American pledge on Change.org with him, illustrating the outpouring of support he's already gathered for a new conversation around immigration. At this point, Colbert quipped that he was very happy with the current immigration debate, thank you very much, because he got to say angry things about immigrants to drive his ratings. Unfortunately, beneath the humor lies an all-too-familiar reality.

That's right, Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who shook the United States immigration debate last month when he came out as an undocumented immigrant, is headed for a guest appearance with comedian Stephen Colbert tomorrow. Guess what? He's bringing Change.org members' signatures of support with him!

On Tuesday Vargas posted, "We need YOU to reach out into your community and talk about the personal issues of immigration, especially with people who would not otherwise discuss it, or with people who do not agree with you."

"Almost 10,000 people have already committed to having these conversations, and our goal is to reach 25,000 by this Thursday, July 14th, where Jose will announce our collective commitment on The Colbert Report - during an episode fully devoted to immigration and DREAMers. Will you sign and share the pledge with five people today?"

Fortunately, more than three times that number of people have already signed the pledge -- including more than 50,000 new supporters in the past twenty-four hours!

This July 4^th I was both inspired and pushed to reflect on what it means to be American as I read through the hundreds of comments that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas has sparked here at Change.org.

What follows are just a few of the highlights. They reflect the complexity of what it means to be a member of this great and evolving nation. A nation founded by immigrants still grappling with a badly broken -- no, dysfunctional -- immigration system.

If you haven’t already, be sure to sign Jose Antonio Vargas’ petition and leave a comment to join the conversation.

Recent comments by Change.org members:

I've taught many undocumented immigrants like Jose who want to contribute to America, but who can't get a driver's license, social security number or scholarships to college. What a shame for a country that was built by immigrants.