Governor and Senator Rally in Support of Connecticut DREAMer

You can’t enlist more powerful people to your cause than the Governor and senior US Senator from your state, so  Mariano Cardoso Jr. deserves a spotlight, tinged with irony.

Cardoso is a DREAMER, a student at Capital Community College, in Hartford, Connecticut, where he’s lived since he was a baby.

Courant.com picks-up his story:

Cardoso, 23, was picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in 2008 during a chance encounter in New Britain and is now just a month from graduation. He was ordered deported after a hearing in February 2010 and received a letter this February saying his appeal had been rejected.

The rejection prompted Cardoso to go public and he has since received support from students and faculty of the Capitol College community. The have been demonstrations, a support group at neighboring Central Connecticut State University and an on line petition with more than 900 signatures to date.

Cardoso, who says he wants to teach math or be a civil engineer (and goodness knows we need many more of those), has received the support of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy who wrote to federal officials Wednesday urging them to defer the deportation proceedings.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday his staff has been working with federal immigration officials to review Cardoso’s case and is “encouraged about his prospects” of having deportation deferred. “I think the merits are clearly in favor of him staying in this country,” Blumenthal said.

And Senator Joseph Lieberman is using Cardoso’s case in defense of his long standing support of the DREAM Act.

Whitney Phillips, a spokeswoman for Lieberman, said in an e-mail, “This case highlights why the senator is a strong and active supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and such legislation as the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military.”

The DREAM Act won approval in the US House of Representatives, but died by a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda