For those of you too lazy to read this story (shame on you, because I even dug it up on NPR, the only news source that I truly trust), a Harvard student, Eric Balderas, faces deportation back to Mexico. He is an undocumented immigrant and came into the United States when he was four years old to escape a domestic violence situation. He was caught when he used his Mexican Consulate ID card boarding a plane in his hometown of San Antonio bound for Boston.
Here's a particularly complicated situation. Should Balderas be allowed to stay in the country? He barely remembers his homeland of Mexico and speaks English perfectly. He is on a stellar career track at one of the world's premier universities, studying molecular and cellular biology on a full scholarship. He does not fit the social category of "Illegal Immigrant" by society's consensual standards and would be considered an American at first glance and if not for his legal status. I would trust that most non-xenophobic Americans would probably take pity on his situation and just say that we should grant him clemency and give him a green card, if not full-blown citizenship. I, for one, would give him citizenship, if it were up to me; it just doesn't seem right to deport someone in his situation. My gut tells me so.
It's not that simple, though.
For if you are to retain someone like Balderas, then things get a little messy. You can't retain one person simply because it seems wrong to deport him. Laws apply to all people in a country and no one is exempt from that law unless explicitly stated so in the law itself. What would be the guidelines for deciding whether one should stay? If Balderas is allowed legal status, does that mean all the English-speaking minors who come illegally into America with their parents should be granted legal status as well? What about the non-English speaking minors? Are they less American and therefore excluded from clemency? For families that illegally come to America, should we only deport parents and not the children? Who would care for the children, then?
Balderas seems to be exceptional because he has been in the United States for a particularly long period of time and he is extremely successful. However, it would be foolish to say that legal status should be based solely on an illegal immigrant's time period spent in the United States. It would be even more foolish to give legal status to only successful illegal immigrant students, because that brings subjectivity into the judgment process, which never has any good outcomes.
None of these questions have any easy answers. When all is said and done, I think a majority of us would not want to see Balderas deported. If we were in his situation and stripped of a chance to study at Harvard, displaced from the country we have learned to call home, and forced to start over in a foreign country based on legal technicality which was not of our fault at all... well, it would suck a fat one, to say the least. It wouldn't be fair. And while laws should be impartial to bias, no law should be unfair, cruel, or punitive to a party that did not do anything wrong in the first place. The reason we create laws in the United States is to protect ourselves, protect our rights to property, and to establish order in society. A good law never has a cruel outcome.
To lawmakers: With illegal immigration, you've got a daunting task. You have to protect those, like Balderas, who were not at fault to be in their situation and already have way too much to lose. At the same time, you also have to keep out future immigrants, because while there may be potential Balderases, his kind are, quite frankly, few in number in comparison to the rest. You also must draft a law that will distinguish between people that can stay and people cannot stay in the country. These lines should be clear as day, or else you'll see a ton of illegal immigrants doing really ridiculous things just to jump through loopholes to get legal status. Less important are the punitive measures - because, if you think about it, of those that "should stay" in the US like Balderas, these immigrants would probably not think twice about paying a fine, making up for back taxes (over a period of time, of course), etc. We also do not need immigration laws like Arizona's that overly simplify matters.
Balderas' hearing is likely to take place in Boston and the Harvard University administration and student body have thrown their entire support behind him. Let's hope he gets to stay in the United States because, honestly, we need more people like him.
I've actually read this story from a few sources (none of which were NPR - expand your horizons Harvard Boy), and you are correct in saying this is a daunting task. Something has to be done about illegal immigration, but the Rule of Law must prevail - does this young man have special status because he is as Harvard? more so than a young man who is doing stooped labor? The issue is a difficult one, but one that our government must tackle nonetheless. We must have immigration reform that is responsible - a good start would be guest worker visas, as well as new avenues for the express line to citizenship via military service (which I believe we are already employing).
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