Ingrid Zarate Albarran is an American success story come to life, a young immigrant who overcame poverty to graduate from UNLV and land a job offer from one of the world’s most prominent accounting firms.
But her career may be derailed before it even begins, due to President Donald Trump’s racist immigration policies.
Zarate is among hundreds of thousands of recent grads and other job seekers whose futures were cast in doubt last month when the Trump administration expanded a freeze on green card applications through the end of the year. The moratorium, which initially applied only to applicants outside the U.S., was extended to all applications in June.
For Zarate Albarran, who had applied for a green card, that news came as a crushing moral blow. With her application on hold and with her current visa set to expire in January, she’s now facing possible deportation early next year instead of taking the next step toward the American dream.
“I feel like I’ve done everything I can,” she said during a recent interview with the Sun. “I got the best grades I could, and I’ve done as much as I can for this community that I consider my home. And I feel like it’s still not enough.”
Let’s state this loud and clear: Not allowing someone like Zarate Albarran to enter the American workforce not only runs counter to our nation’s values, it’s a self-inflicted wound to our economy and our prestige as a land of opportunity.
Zarate came here with her family at age 13 from a small town in Mexico, and not long after, she and her mother received a visa for victims of criminal violence.
Residing in a small apartment in Las Vegas — except for a couple of occasions when they were forced to live out of their car — the mother-daughter team did whatever was needed to get by. They cleaned houses and did landscaping work, with Ingrid translating for customers.
Zarate Albarran earned straight A’s in high school at Del Sol Academy of the Arts and graduated as valedictorian of her class but felt college was beyond her grasp: The family couldn’t even spare the money for application fees. But mentors stepped in to encourage her to apply for scholarships, and she followed their lead. She landed a number of scholarships, enrolled at UNLV and continued to rocket through her schoolwork.
While juggling a part-time job, she also volunteered nearly 400 hours with the Public Education Foundation and competed with a team that won the National Institute of Management Accountants’ (NIMA) national competition in which students present solutions to business challenges. She then started a campus chapter of NIMA that quickly grew to 95 members and hosted more than 30 events.
She graduated with a 3.94 GPA and was named one of UNLV’s Outstanding Graduates of 2020.
That got her on the radar at Ernst & Young, which offered her a job as an external auditor and agreed to give her a corporate immigration sponsorship.
Things were looking great until June 22, when the Trump administration expanded the hold on green cards. Trump portrayed the move as a way to protect some 550,000 American jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.
But putting Zarate Albarran and others like her in limbo is patently unfair. These are Americans in every sense but having a piece of paper. They’ve embraced our values of hard work, education and self-sufficiency. They’ve pulled themselves and their families up the ladder. They’ve contributed to our communities, our church congregations, our schools and more. There is little doubt Zarate and those like her make America stronger and better.
Surely, Republicans can recognize that those who play by the rules and excel have earned a place in the land of opportunity.
Last week, even the Trump administration seemed to acknowledge this, when it rescinded a directive that would have snatched visas from international students whose coursework would be done fully online. That move came amid withering criticism of the directive, with advocates saying it was unfair to students and would hurt colleges financially. Reportedly, aides close to Trump became convinced that the order was a cruel overreach, which is saying something — when even these people recognize that something is a bad idea, you know it’s awful.
But while international students appear safe for now, the same can’t be said for immigrants who aren’t here on international visas and instead are hoping to obtain green cards or extensions of certain visas. They’re in limbo.
As for Zarate, she’s decided to go back to UNLV to pursue a master’s degree. She says Ernst & Young has pledged to bring her aboard when the time is right — which is commendable — and she feels protected at the university. That’s a justifiable belief, given that UNLV’s strong advocacy for immigrant students has helped make it one of the nation’s most ethnically diverse universities.
Meanwhile, Zarate is working with an attorney in hopes of staying in the U.S. Asked where she would go if she were deported, she doesn’t have a ready answer.
“I don’t know,” she said. “To me, this is home. This is where I learned everything. These are my friends. This is my community.”
As she waits for an outcome, she says she plans to advocate on behalf of fellow students who are in her situation.
“I just wish I could talk to (Trump) like I’m talking to you,” she said, adding that she would explain to him that his actions are jeopardizing the futures of “a lot of great students — great GPAs, great role models — who want to contribute.”
It’s a message that Nevada’s leaders should hear, as should voters nationwide. People like Zarate have worked as hard as anyone to achieve the American dream. No American should stand by and let this happen.