DEPORT THIS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT, TOO

Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego Union-Tribune
San Francisco Chronicle, CA
June 11 2008

Let me say a few words in defense of deporting illegal immigrants. I
wouldn’t have thought such a defense would be necessary, because
being in the United States without proper documents is a crime and
the penalty is deportation.

But try telling that to the folks in Central California who are
experiencing warm and fuzzy feelings for 17-year-old Arthur Mkoyan. The
high school valedictorian in my hometown of Fresno, Calif., should
be thinking about the same things that other graduating seniors think
about this time of year – planning to go to college, going to parties
and all the rest.

Arthur has certainly earned it. He studied hard to earn a perfect
grade-point average. And, for his hard work, he was admitted to UC
Davis, where he planned to study chemistry.

And yet, Arthur will probably never make it to freshman
orientation. That’s because, on June 20, the extension of his
deportation order will expire and federal immigration authorities
will likely apprehend the young man and his mother and send them to
Armenia. His father is being held in a detention facility in Arizona
until he can be deported. There is also Arthur’s 12-year-old brother,
a U.S.-born citizen who the family plans to take with them.

According to the Fresno Bee, Arthur’s father came to the United States
from the former Soviet Union in December 1991, and sought political
asylum. Arthur and his mother joined him a few years later. No one
came with the proper documents. And so, when their asylum application
was rejected, and their appeals were denied, they were targeted
for deportation.

That is as it should be. The law is the law.

Still, it’s a heartbreaking story. Here you have an all-American kid
who hasn’t seen Armenia since he was a toddler, and who is now headed
to a country where the people, language and customs are foreign to
him. Besides, this is precisely the kind of young person we should
want to keep in this country.

Say, maybe we can work out a trade. Armenia lets us keep Arthur, and
we send a dozen of our lazier, less-productive U.S.-born teenagers
who think themselves entitled to the good life but don’t want to do
the work to make it happen.

Many people are going to bat for Mkoyan – from Armenian advocacy
groups to Republican Rep. George Radanovich, who represents part of
the Central Valley and has many Armenian constituents. The family has
also approached Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the hopes that
she’ll introduce a rare measure to grant legal status to a specific
individual. There’s also plenty of support for the young man on the
Internet and on talk radio.

Not that it is likely to do any good. Arthur, and his parents, will
probably be deported. And they should be.

I said the same thing six years ago when a similar story surfaced. In
August 2002, the Denver Post ran a front-page story about Jesus
Apodaca, a recent high school graduate with a 3.93 grade-point average
who wanted to go to the University of Colorado but couldn’t afford
the tuition – because he was an illegal immigrant. In Colorado,
the undocumented have to pay out-of-state tuition rates, which are
higher than those for residents. A member of Congress involved himself
in that case as well, albeit in a different capacity. Anti-illegal
immigration crusader Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., called what was then
the Immigration and Naturalization Service and asked them what they
were planning to do about Apodaca. The young man and his family were
apprehended and, last we heard, were slated for deportation. That
won applause from many immigration hard-liners.

But here’s the part that bothers me: I wonder why more of them –
including Tancredo – aren’t making a fuss over Arthur Mkoyan. The
fact is, Apodaca didn’t get nearly the amount of public sympathy that
Mkoyan has received up to now.

Why the double standard? I believe it’s because, while Mkoyan may not
have a leg to stand on legally, he at least has the benefit of not
being Mexican. Much of the immigration debate is fueled by a fear
of a changing culture, competing languages, an altered landscape,
and what loopy Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist calls the
"colonization" of the United States by Mexican immigrants.

Arthur Mkoyan isn’t considered a party to any of that. For some
people, that makes all the difference. And, in some respects, that’s
the saddest thing about this story.

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