Second-grader reveals mother’s immigration status
While visiting an elementary school in Silver Spring, Maryland today, First Lady Michelle Obama was asked a question which placed her in the middle of the immigration debate. Mrs. Obama, who visited the New Hampshire Estates Elementary School with Mexico’s First Lady, Margarita Zavala, handled the visit with the poise of a seasoned politician.
During the visit there was an exchange between Mrs. Obama and a young second-grader. The student began by saying, “My mom, she says that Barack Obama is taking away everybody that doesn’t have papers.”
Mrs. Obama responded, “Yeah, well that’s something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right?” But, that was not enough for this precocious second-grader, she continued with this, “but my mom doesn’t have any papers.” Mrs. Obama gave this response, “Well, we have to work on that. We have to fix that. And everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that that happens.”
While some believe that the question was fed to the student by her mother, it is doubtful that the girl’s second statement about her mother not having “papers” was staged because it could expose her mother to deportation. Apparently some concerns were raised which caused Dana Tofig, spokesman for the Montgomery schools, to release the following statement, “We won’t help identify the kid. We won’t help identify the parents.” Luckily (for this girl’s mother) this happened in Maryland and not Arizona.
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