here are some facts about the case, which I have gleaned from other, competently-written news articles.
Her family came to this country on a tourist visa when she was 4 years old (not 1991).
She is 18 years old now.
She applied for a green card when she turned 18. She was denied, and that is what prompted her voluntary deportation order.
Her older brother is U.S. citizen, and serves in the Army.
Her mother went to Colombia for treatment of colon cancer, but then was not able to return.
Her father is a legal resident, because of his son being a U.S. citizen. But that doesn’t extend to adult siblings.
So, in summary. When she came here at age 4, she did so legally. And of course, you can’t blame a 4-year-old for what their parents do. At some point, their tourist visa expired, and the family became illegal. This is a common way for people to be here illegally, and is the method that is most often correctable by filing the correct paperwork.
As her father has gained legal residency through the older son, the children were also legal while they were minors.
But when they turn 18, they have to file for their own legal status, and that is where they are right now. Given that they were legal before 18, it is not in my opinion a good case to argue that we should automatically reject her application because she’s breaking the law.
In fact, it seems probably that she WILL be granted legal status, either directly (through an appeal of her application), through the student visa process (she was a legal minor, and her grades will probably meet the standards for foreign student visa applications), or if necessary, through hardship status (being in America since she was 4 years old, she has no ties to her “home country”, and would have little chance to integrate into the society — she might not even speak the language.
Now, we normally discount that as “not our problem” since it’s not our fault her parents cut her off from her culture, but given that she was a legal minor, she didn’t break the law coming here, and in fact followed the legal process as soon as she was able to act independently, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be considered.
And in fact, I presume that’s why we here stories like this — because the pro-illegal forces want to pretend all the stories are like this, when many are not.
Please provide links to the other articles.
Ah yes, the old "We've got to give comprehensive amnesty to all gang bangers and jihadis because we might hurt one deserving kid if we don't" argument.
See my post #76.
Back in that time, I think the only news article the kid got was 4 or 5 column inches inside our local weekly. That's because he didn't serve an agenda.