On Immigration

I don't know much about the issues surrounding immigration. They aren't as black and white as other issues, such as foreign and economic policies are. There's one thing I do know for sure, though. While "amnesty" for illegal immigrants may not be a good idea, penalizing people who where brought to the U.S. at the age of two, attending twelve years of school in the U.S., is not a good idea, either.
Here's one example of where we have gone wrong. I have a friend who was illegally brought to the U.S. by her parents at around two or three years old. In school, she studied her butt off, and got something like a 4.5 on a 5.0 scale in high school. When she was 17, she had her own apartment, and was working full time. Unfortunately, even though she worked very hard, there was no way for her to go to college after graduating, due to her immigration status. In fact, she couldn't even get a good job, because we felt the need to hold her accountable for what her parents did over 16 years previous. But you know what? She's never bitched about how she was screwed, never griped that America owes her anything. She just accepted it, and kept on.
She's still in the U.S., and still not a citizen. Before you judge, you should know: she is a soldier now, and has been serving for almost three years, doing more than most of you, for a country that wanted to kick her out. Hopefully she will be a citizen soon; we owe that much to someone who worked her butt off all her life, and is now serving our country in the army.
So, before we put everyone who came here illegally under the same blanket, we need to step out of our arrogant comfort zones, and take a look at the lives we may be affecting. It's simply not right for us to send someone away who has been allowed to make America their home. It's nothing short of embarrassing the way we sometimes treat people.