Posted on 05/19/2007 2:12:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CANCITA, Mexico - Since they joined their deported parents in Mexico, 7-year-old Adriana has stopped screaming "Papa!" in her sleep and 10-year-old Yadira's asthma has eased. Pedro, 15, doesn't break into tears anymore, and Adrian, 12, thinks of his new life as an adventure.
For now, these American children are trying to ignore the wrenching decision they have to make by the end of summer: Stay with their parents in this bone-dry village where they bathe in a canal and use an outhouse, or return alone to some of America's best schools in Palo Alto, Calif.
Tens of thousands of families are facing similar choices, and even more soon could if Congress goes ahead with an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws.
About 3 million U.S.-born children have a parent who is living illegally in America, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, and since 2004 the government has been deporting illegal immigrants at a record rate.
The Senate is expected to begin debate Monday on a sweeping bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. The bill would limit the importance of family ties, capping visas for parents of U.S. citizens at 40,000 a year and changing a preference system that for four decades has favored such ties.
Pedro Ramirez Sr., 38, was banking on that system to give him and his wife a path to citizenship once their eldest son turns 18 in two years. Now he's not so sure: The new proposal would place more emphasis on potential immigrants' skills and education, and his deportation may rule him out anyway.
Ramirez never went to school. He sneaked across the border as a 16-year-old boy, learning English as he worked his way up from a minimum-wage factory job to night supervisor at an Albertson's supermarket.
His promotion and the jump in salary from $6 to $16 an hour allowed him to move his family from the rough streets of East Palo Alto to quiet, suburban Palo Alto, home to Stanford University.
He and his wife also applied for residency, but were denied after their lawyer was disbarred. Immigration officials say they evaded notices to appear in court.
Back in Mexico, the family has spent their savings of nearly $10,000 unsuccessfully fighting for residency. Friends, parents and teachers from Pedro Jr.'s Gunn High School No. 79 in the country last year, according to a Newsweek ranking have raised $2,000 for the family.
Before his father was deported in February, Pedro's biggest problems were how to get into UCLA law school and persuading his football coach to let him be quarterback. Now, he says he might have to get used to the family's two-room shack and bathing in a canal to keep the family together.
"If I go, I want to go with everybody," he said.
His mother, Isabel, said she'll let her children decide what they want to do. If they return to California, the boys would live with an aunt in Newark, Calif., and the girls with their fifth-grade teacher in Palo Alto.
She said the past few months have been traumatic enough.
After Ramirez was deported in February, Pedro Jr. broke into tears in his math class and couldn't concentrate. He was appalled by his mother's monitoring ankle bracelet, saying: "You're not a criminal!"
"I feel betrayed," by the U.S. government, Pedro Jr. said.
Isabel, 36, tries to make life in Mexico as normal as possible for the children. She bought a cushioned toilet seat for the outhouse, but it slides off the wooden bench. She incessantly sweeps the dirt floor of the shack where she cooks and splashes bleach on the ground to keep away the flies.
But it's a losing battle. Cancita has no running water and no telephone service. It's also in the middle of one of Mexico's most violent regions the western state of Michoacan.
Earlier this month, a half-dozen military helicopters swooped into Cancita after gunmen in a nearby town killed five soldiers in a midday shootout. The troops frisked Pedro Jr. and his father as they went house-to-house looking for drugs and weapons.
"I was a little nervous," Pedro Jr. admitted sheepishly.
But his main fear is for what will happen to his parents. If they stay in Cancita, there is no work. If they try to return to the U.S., they'll have to go illegally through the dangerous desert.
If the children stay in Cancita, they'll have to learn to read and write in Spanish. Adrian, a seventh grader, is struggling with "Los Tres Cerditos" "The Three Little Pigs."
Pedro Jr. spends his days burning rap songs on his dust-covered computer and transferring them to his MP3 player, which the neighbors think is a cell phone.
Yadira said when she explained the device could play songs from the Internet, they asked: "What's the Internet?"
"I don't want to go to school here. It's no good. There's nowhere to play," she said. But she added: "I don't want to go back and leave my parents."
That’s the exact argument that is made. I wish it would be clarified now, to exclude those whose parents are here illegally. I am pretty sure that other countries don’t make citizens of those born of illegal aliens.
susie
“Jurisdiction” means “the power, right, or authority to interpret and apply the law : the limits or territory within which authority may be exercised.”
It JUST means WE can apply “the law” as we have interpreted it.
I do not believe the SCOTUS has EVER had before it, the question of the meaning of this issue. Maybe its time.
They can't pick the taxpayers pockets in Mexico like they do here.
Why don’t they go back to their own country and change it. After all, they have sent billions back to their families. I would think that would be enough to take back their own country.
And when they have changed their country; they can pay me back for all the money I have paid for their upkeep here.
Did Geraldo ghost write this for them? The beginning of the story sounds like his Fox Show last Saturday.
The Supreme Court ruled in US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) that the Constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship applies to the children of aliens—even those subjects of and loyal to an foreign potentate and ineligible for citizenship or even presence in the United States, provided only that the parents are neither foreign diplomats, Indian tribesmen, nor part of an enemy military invasion. Although the decision concerned the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, its reasoning leaves little doubt that the children of even illegal aliens born in the United States are citizens of the United States.
I have zero sympathy for those who jumped ahead of people who wait to legally immigrate. Zero sympathy for their anchor babies too.
Diplomats and their children are not subject to the laws of the US, but only to the laws of their own countries. We cannot prosecute them if they do something illegal.
I don’t think we want to give diplomatic immunity to illegals. Therefore, they are subject to the jurisdiction of the US. Unless the law changes, anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen.
Once the Government takes legal action to delineate who is here legally and may be a citizen, then we can discuss the merits of their determination.
They’re American, and it’s not so easy as just changing a law, the 14th amendment will need to be changed. We can’t even get a sane immigration bill, do you think that we could get a Constitutional amendment ratified?
The kids are American, it’s easy to tell by the whining. LOL.
There have been very good cases made that demolish your case. In a good court with a good judge they would prevail and get rid of this anchor baby travesty
The courts have interpreted the law but are basically legislating. The Amendment is clear. The Supreme Court never ruled on the 14th Amendment. The US is unique in the industrialized world allowing the illegals offspring to become de facto citizens.
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters4608
As someone pointed out, ILLEGALS are not subject to the laws of the US but their own country, therefore their children were never intended to be citizens. To assume that they are citizens means there is a need for another Amendment before they can be shipped out. But as the current Amendkment verbiage is adequate Congress merely has to clarify the meaning of the Amendment with another law.
BTW Canada had to change their citizenship law as all the Asians were flying into Vancouver and having their kids there or even in flight. Racist or Patriotic OR THEY COULDN'T AFFORD IT!... and neither can we. The door has to slam sometime. Australia closed its doors - stating "We are Diverse, no more immigration."
They have bleach in Mexico?
“As someone pointed out, ILLEGALS are not subject to the laws of the US but their own country, therefore their children were never intended to be citizens”
If illegals are not subject to our laws, then why are our prisons full of them?
I HAVE LEARNED SEVERAL THINGS IN THIS LITTLE ARTICLE.1. Bone dry villages have canals for bathing(full of what?).2.15 year old males cry in their sleep.3. Going home to Mexico helps asthma.4 There are NO grocery stores in Mexico(if there were, people would work in them)5.IF you get deported you can only go to one spot in the whole country.6. If you have no indoor plumbing and your house has a dirt floor, YOU CAN STILL BURN RAP MUSIC TO CD’S!( CDs MUST BE MADE OUT OUT HUB CAPS).7. In 2 years a 15 year old will be ....18!8. Have zero education and in the US you can become a manager in a grocery store.9. being an illegal alien does not mean you are a criminal 10. Being the child of an illegal alien GUARANTEES that you will get into an IVY league Law School. I can’t wait for the next installment. I am wiping the tears out of my eyes in anticipation.
How can you write such crap and consider yourself a journalist?
With the AP, Al-Reuters, and others, no politician will have the will to enforce it.
It is as much of a sham of the "Censure-Plus" option against Clinton -- which contained as its centerpiece the openly and explicitly Unconstitutional "Bill of Attainder".
Cheers!
Until I read some comments here I didn't know there was any controversy about the rule that those born here are citizens. Thanks to both of you for the new perspective.
I agree with both of you that the U.S. isn't really to blame in this matter -- if we're looking to blame anyone I vote for the &^$%@ed up culture of Mexico, which offers its citizens so much poverty and stifled opportunities.
Until the courts rule otherwise, I also consider these kids to be U.S. citizens and I wish them all the best in a difficult situation that's not of their making. I hope they can return some day when the time is right for them, and contribute to our economy and culture -- whether that's now, or some time in the future.
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