Jorge-Alonso Chehade may soon have to send letters like this to his Washingtonian friends from his homeland Peru.Jorge-Alonso Chehade, like many recent University of Washington graduates, is struggling to find a job. But he’s got another problem: He’s also an illegal immigrant.At 14, Chehade’s parents came to the U.S. from Peru. He kept his head down and worked hard to get through high school and college, but ran into trouble last year when he took a wrong turn on I-5 and ended up at the Canadian border. Customs officials arrested Chehade and, soon after, the UW business-school graduate made it very clear he was not going back to his homeland without a fight. A fight he’s probably going to lose.Chehade has twice managed to avoid being deported, with the latest time being an indefinite delay. And in his pursuit of citizenship, he’s made some powerful friends. Getting Rep. Jim McDermott to introduce a bill specifically aimed at keeping him in the States and enjoying the lobbying efforts of Sen. Maria Cantwell, who’s been promoting the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.Both pieces of legislation would afford Chehade permanent residency. But there’s little chance either will be passed anytime soon; DREAM has been batted around for a decade and McDermott’s bill is a long ways off from even being debated.The final irony: All of this attention has made it that much harder for Chehade to find that job he’s been hunting for. As the rules of the recession dictate, if you have two well-qualified candidates, you go with the one who’s actually a citizen.
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