Everything I’ve worked for, it’s, like going down the drain in a matter of days. I consider myself an American. [Deportation] would mean I’d leave a country and go back to a country that I don’t remember, a country [where] I don’t feel at home, and I don’t even graduate high school.North Miami, Fla. High School senior Daniela Palaez • On finding out that she faces deportation by the end of the month. Palaez, who was brought to the U.S. on a tourist visa when she was four years old, has an insane 6.7 GPA, was to be the school’s valedictorian, and only found out Monday that she had to leave the country after a federal immigration judge denied her request for a green card. Her lawyer plans to appeal, which might delay her deportation by a number of years. (She has a brother in the military who has the right to live in the U.S. permanently, and her father is able to stay because of this. However, her mother has been in Colombia for five years after returning for cancer surgery, and cannot return to the U.S.) Palaez found strong support from her school, who held a rally for her Friday. Should someone in Congress step in to prevent this from happening? Does this reflect what immigration law is supposed to do? What do you think?
» Obama and the Chamber of Commerce, together at last: In a decision in a case that put two longtime adversaries on the same side of a losing battle, the Supreme Court backed an Arizona immigration law that encourages employers to verify their workers — or they could lose their business license if they knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. We don’t know if we agree with the Supreme Court’s decision on this case — especially because it could lead to a number of copycat laws as a result of this. (By the way, in case you were wondering: Justice Elena Kagan didn’t vote in the case, as it came up while she was still Solicitor General.)
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