Should We Keep Deporting Ivy League Students?

Illegal immigration is a difficult issue that we haven't addressed much on this blog recently. But the DREAM Act could come up for a vote before the end of the year, which would allow young Americans with a high school degree to apply for permanent residency after college or military service, and I wanted to share this interesting story about undocumented immigrants who make it to the Ivy League and still face deportation.

Pedro Pedroza, a Cornell University would-be senior whose sister graduated from Harvard in 2004, earned two master's degrees, and became a resident by way of marriage. Pedroza, who hopes to become a teacher, was detained in 2008 while traveling to Cornell from Chicago on a Greyhound bus. He had encountered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on previous bus trips; they waived him on after seeing his Mexican documents and college ID. Not this time. Pedroza is now living with his parents in Chicago and awaiting a deportation hearing.

On the one hand, we are a nation of laws and law-enforcers are required to uphold those laws when they encounter an undocumented immigrant. On the other hand, the sight of college students attaining a degree in the United States and facing deportation does not strike me as the right way to capture and keep the world's brightest minds, to say the least. Simplifying the H-1B visa process and making it easier for college graduates to stay in the United States would be a wise next step.

Read the full story at BloombergBusinessweek.