What do you as a journalist when you become part of a story? This thought must be crossing the minds of journalists currently in Iraq, as many are being fired upon by both Americans and Iraqis, and reporting on it. Closer to home, the thought must also have crossed the mind of Roger Calero, associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial, a New York-based Spanish news magazine, and a staff writer for The Militant, a socialist weekly also of New York.

On his 18th stop in a tour around the country, Calero dropped by the Wheatley Student Lounge to tell his story of getting fired at by another kind of ammunition to a small crowd of a dozen or so people gathered there.

In early December 2002, Calero was returning from an assignment in Cuba and Mexico, having covered an international conference on free trade. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which apparently considers each entry a new entry, seized him at Houston Intercontinental airport, took away his laptop and camera, threw him into an immigration jail, and charged him with a 15-year-old conviction of selling marijuana to an undercover cop.

He had already served out the punishment, since he had copped a plea and was put on a three-year probation, of which the main condition was to finish his education at his Los Angeles high school, Calero explained. He applied for permanent residency in 1989, including the conviction in the records, and was given a green card. The INS renewed his card in 2000. Calero, now a permanent resident for twelve years, is also married to a citizen and now where he now resides in Newark, New Jersey.

His case is an example of “current laws [being] applied more intensely,” he says, citing an increase in the number of Border Patrol police to fifteen thousand, a fence being put across the southern border in 2000, and noted the current fear among immigrants that they are going to be deported. He cited an incident at the University of South Florida, where hundreds of men were arrested when they came in to voluntarily comply with government measures, since the INS requires students to register with them.

“We will fight to continue rights,” he said, and encouraged the audience to send a letter to the INS district director in Houston, Hipolito Acosta.

Calero’s cause has drawn widespread support, from coal miners in Colorado to a letter of endorsement from Iraq. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Union of Journalists have written letters of protest, as has Nick Castle, writer of John Carpenter’s “Escape From New York,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Hook,” and director of “Dennis the Menace” and “The Last Starfighter.”

Having been let out on probation December 13, with a hearing set for March 25, Calero continues to tour the country to drum more support for his cause, and after the two hour-long March 13 lunch at UMass Boston, was scheduled to appear at the Most Holy Redeemer Church in Boston, to take the stage with Amer Jubran, a Palestinian activist also fighting deportation. Jubran previously visited UMB back in 2001, as part of a forum on the war in Afghanistan.

Calero’s event was sponsored by Casa Latina, one of the more prominent clubs on campus.