Deporting the Best and the Brightest

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


An undocumented Harvard student is now facing deportation, and his case has become a rallying point for a nationwide network of immigration advocates. The AP explains:

Eric Balderas, 19, who just completed his first year at Harvard, said he was detained Monday by immigration authorities when he tried to board a plane from his hometown of San Antonio to Boston using a consulate card from Mexico and his student ID.

“I’d made it through before so I thought this time wouldn’t be any different,” Balderas said Friday in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “But once [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] picked me up I really didn’t know what to think and I was starting to break down.”…

Balderas said he is studying molecular and cellular biology at Harvard and hopes to become a cancer researcher. He said he qualified for Harvard’s privately-funded scholarship package.

Some immigration reformers are now hoping to use Balderas as a test case to support the passage of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would give certain undocumented high school graduates the chance to earn legal status if they graduate from college or perform military service.

The bipartisan DREAM Act was introduced last year by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). It’s has long been considered one of the more popular immigration reform proposals, and Balderas’ story makes it easy to see why: the bill rewards the “good kids,” the model students who—like all children of immigrants—did not make the decision to come to the US themselves. (A Facebook page supporting Balderas says that he and his family came to the US when he was 4 “due to domestic violence in their native country.”) Having held hunger strikes and other protest activities in recent weeks, DREAM activists have now launched an all-out lobbying campaign focused around Balderas’ case to pass the bill.

In the meantime, as my colleague Jessica reports, anti-immigration advocates in Georgia have introduced legislation that would actually target undocumented students by reviewing the immigration status of every student in the state’s public colleges. But the opposition to passing the DREAM Act isn’t just coming from anti-immigrant quarters. It’s also coming from some of the major players who support a comprehensive immigration overhaul, who want the popular measure to be folded into a much larger reform package, where it could serve as an incentive to draw broad-based support for less popular measures. The argument is that any immigration measure that’s introduced right now will spark a huge, contentious fight in Congress, and some reformers are afraid that the failure of such a proposal could dim the chances for a systemic overhaul. Durbin, for one, has soft-pedaled the DREAM Act in recent weeks for fear of undercutting the immigration overhaul effort that his colleague—and Democratic leadership rival—Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is heading up.

But top Democrats have moved the goal posts further and further away: after having promised to push for immigration reform in 2010, Schumer is now saying that a comprehensive bill won’t be completed until March 2011, at the earliest. The delay, Democrats say, is a concession to the tough political realities this year, given the deadlocked Congress and upcoming midterm elections. But the Republican gains that are expected in both Houses of Congress certainly won’t make things any easier after November. And grassroots activists are growing increasingly frustrated and angry—and are resorting to bolder steps to demand action. In March, the AP reports, Balderas was one of hundreds of students who announced their immigration status in a national “coming out” day for illegal immigrants. In May, four undocumented students were arrested after staging a sit-in in Sen. John McCain’s Tucson office. In hopes of building their lives in the US, they’re risking everything to stay.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate