June 19, 2008
As the school year ends, millions of children throughout the United States are looking forward to summer vacations. Many will soon be packing their bags as they head off to summer camp or to their first year of college. But others are not so lucky. Some children are packing all of their belongings and preparing to leave what may be the only home they have ever known, as the U.S. government prepares to expel them to countries they may not even remember. Others with the potential for higher education and a professional career are resigned to a life that’s underachieving and underground. As lawmakers keep trying to “deport their way out” of a dysfunctional immigration system that has fueled a growing undocumented population, they would do well to consider the approximately 1.8 million undocumented students in the United States, whose deportation would be traumatic not only for the students themselves, but for the American workforce as a whole.
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