Luis Luna, 20, was an illegal immigrant, smuggled here from Mexico at 3. The LA Times tells his story. Luis did well in school, graduated, got engaged to his high school sweetheart, got a job, then got pulled over while on the way to work for a broken headlight. He had no driver’s license, Immigration was called in, and Luis was deported to Mexico.
He tried to get back by riding the undercarriage of a boxcar, scant inches above the train roadbed, until the train stopped at a U.S. border checkpoint, where a German Shepherd sniffed him out, sank his teeth into Luis’s ribcage, and dragged him out. Luis is now homeless in Nogales, hoping to find a way legally to return to his girlfriend-now-wife, his family, friends, and the only life he’s ever known.
Luis’s tragedy could have been precluded under the Dream Act, which would provide temporary residency and a possible path to citizenship to Luis and hundreds of thousands like him who were brought here as small children and have played by the rules ever since.
President Obama supports the Dream Act, which passed the House last year but failed to get the 60 votes needed to avert a filibuster in the Senate. Mitt Romney says he would veto it, Newt Gingrich says he supports it—a principled position that is costing him dearly with Republican primary voters.
Tags: border checkpoint, broken headlight, Dream Act, ethics, filibuster, Gingrich, illegal immigrants, LA Times, Luis Luna, Obama, path to citizenship, Republican primary voters., Romney Luis Luna
Ethics Bob 
January 19, 2012 at 11:54 am |
1. Don’t you hate it when you post an article before you title it? Though “1638” is kind of mysterious…
2. How can you say he played by the rules, when he was driving without a license and hid his illegal status as an adult?
3. I guess you mean those “Rules of Being an Illegal Immigrant”. I don’t remember those ever being officially sanctioned here, but the Dream Act is certainly a step in that direction.
4. Quick–name me one other legal benefit that an illegal act is part of the condition precedent for its use. The Dream Act creates a legitimate motivation for non-citizens to break the law for the benefit of their children.
5. It is as backward, illogical and unethical as a law can possibly be, unless one thinks open borders, cheating, and breaking the law is ethical.
January 19, 2012 at 12:02 pm |
I agree with you about premature posting. About the rest, I guess we just have different opinions, EXCEPT–
#4, motivation: The Act applies only to people who have resided in the US for the five years immediately prior to its passage. I accept your apology.
January 19, 2012 at 2:18 pm |
How a government treats children who reside in that country sends an ethical message to the rest of the world. If it requires bending a law to behave ethically, then I am all for it. Of course, my preference would be to change the law so that policies are both ethical and legal. I think that would be a great goal for the second Obama administration. It will never happen with a Republican.
January 19, 2012 at 2:28 pm |
In the case of a child who is brought here as an infant and who grows up thinking he’s just like everyone else, makes friends, adapts to life in America, and knows no other country, it’s unethical to deport him. The law allows judgments to be made about whether to deport him. But I agree, Jan, we need new laws on immigration. We’d likely get new laws under a Republican administration, but they wouldn’t be the kind of laws that I’d feel good about.
April 21, 2012 at 10:20 am |
[…] at the VP spot on the Romney ticket. He just announced his sponsorship of a modified version of the DREAM Act, which would allow children of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status in the United […]