Look at this one! He had the temerity to immigrate from Armenia to America (the article doesn't make it clear if he was legal and his visa lapsed, or originally illegal). Sixteen years later he has virtually no knowledge of his "home" country -- but did become valedictorian of his high school class.
I agree -- the only proper response is to deport him. If you don't crack down on toddler misbehavior, they'll never learn. And if there's one thing America needs less of, it's really smart people.
As best I can tell, his father was a police officer under the Soviet-run regime in Armenia. When that regime fell, the family's house was burned down, and the father fled in fear of reprisals from those in the independence movement. He had an acquaintance in California, so he went there and filed for asylum. His wife and young son followed him. It apparently took the government 16 years to sort out the asylum claim -- I am betting what happened is that the claim was pretty good at the time filed (i.e. he was reasonably in fear of his life), but things have died down in Armenia sufficiently that they can go back safely. Unfortunately, because the government sat on the claim and waited for the situation in Armenia to calm down, this family established a life in the U.S. (including having another child, a birthright citizen), didn't teach their kids Armenian and essentially figured they were OK.
ReplyDeleteI would be more OK with this decision, however, if the law didn't essentially prohibit any of the family from re-entering the U.S. Normally we hand out student visas like candy to any foreigner who has an acceptance letter from a U.S. school, but because his family applied for asylum, this kid can't even get a student visa to come back.