Following up
on the story of the kid who immigrated with his family from Armenia at age two, became valedictorian of his high school, and is now facing deportation --
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has introduced a private bill to allow him and his family to stay in the United States. It's apparently a long-shot, but we can only hope that
50 60 Senators, a majority of the House, and President Bush decide that sending away really smart kids from the country they've lived in nearly their entire lives is not particularly bright on our part.
I can't say I agree with Feinstein's bill -- she would have had a much better (probably certain) shot of passing a bill that ensured the valedictorian would receive a student visa to attend college in the U.S. Better yet, she could sponsor a bill that made it a rule that children who were brought to the U.S. at a certain age and who are accepted to college will receive student visas, and then had a provision in that to make it retroactive to this particular kid.
ReplyDeleteI really dislike legislation that is made to benefit a single person. Laws are supposed to be general rules. The Republicans have been going down this path with Elian Gonzalez and Terri Schiavo; I don't want Democrats to follow them. Either a situation demonstrates that our whole system has a problem that needs to be fixed, or it is merely bad luck for an individual person. The U.S. Congress should not be fixing the bad luck of a single family.