Immigration: Minors should not be blamed

This whole debate that is going on in the country regarding illegal immigration is missing a fundamental point, which is that some immigrants were brought here as minors. There is no way that someone brought here by their families as a child should be lumped into the same category as their parents.

I am a high school teacher in Texas and I teach some illegal immigrants. Some have been in this country for several years, some most of their lives. They were brought here or sent here by their parents or other family members. They did not, all by themselves, at six years old save up a couple thousand dollars for a coyote to smuggle them across the border in the trunk of a car and then set up house in Austin. They are here, because right or wrong, for better or worse, an adult on who they depended, brought them here.

Once here, they made friends, went to school, built their support network, often under very difficult conditions. Now, many of them lack real ties to their home countries. The teachers who can write them recommendation letters are here, for example. What can they really hope to go back to? Through no fault of their own, their lives are here.

I don't think these kids should be jumped to the front of the immigration line ahead of those who have followed proper channels, but I think that kids who came here as minors and finish high school and respect all the other laws of our country, should be allowed to join the line somehow. Otherwise, we're saying: drop out of school, get into trouble or go to work in some shady business at eleven years old. Working hard means nothing. Education means nothing. You are a criminal. We're saying that people should pay for the rest of their lives for the mistakes of their parents.

Whatever you think of the families who brought them here, those brought here as minors are innocent.