| On paper, the siblings look a lot alike. The same straight As. The same Advanced Placement courses. They are even in same graduating class. Despite their similarities, though, they could be heading down two very different paths. One can securely live and work in the United States as an American citizen. The other fears deportation to a country of which he has no memory, the place where he was born but hasn't been since he was an infant.;Jose and Esperanza Ramos, separated by a birthright and a border, illustrate the long, bitter and ultimately inconclusive debate over U.S. immigration policy during the last three decades. This report follows them for more than a year, from a couple of months shy of their high school graduation through their first year of college and into the middle of a presidential campaign in which immigration is a hot-button issue marked by partisan politics and disjointed public policy.;The United States has restricted immigration since the late 19th century. Unauthorized entry is a crime, and those who enter illegally are subject to deportation. Still, some 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants live and work in the United States. Roughly six in 10 are from Mexico. Some of them bring their children.;Jose --- and other undocumented students like him, young people brought here illegally by their parents --- are part of the legacy of the last thirty or so years of failed U.S. immigration policy. Now, a generation of undocumented students --- many of whom live in mixed status families, like Jose --- are coming of age in the country in which they were raised but not born, a country that doesn't recognize them as belonging here, a country that doesn't really know what to do with them.;Some 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools each year. Only 5 to 10 percent continue on to college. A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision --- Plyler v. Doe, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this summer --- upheld students' rights to public, K-12 education regardless of immigration status. But it didn't answer questions about college. Nor did it make provisions for what might come next, leaving undocumented students largely in limbo after high school graduation.;Policymakers have been considering legislation to deal with the undocumented children who were brought here by their parents for more than a decade. The DREAM --- or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors --- Act was first introduced in 2001. President Barack Obama repeatedly has said he wants to sign it into law. But it continually has been thwarted in Congress.;On June 15, on the anniversary of the Plyler v. Doe decision, Obama used his executive powers to bypass Congress and order his administration to stop deporting undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. While the election-year policy change offers some protection, the lives of young, undocumented immigrants like Jose remain in limbo. These young people have been given a chance to stay and work but not to belong. The executive order does not make it easier for undocumented, college-bound students to seek higher education. It does not give them a pathway to citizenship. |
