Deport this illegal immigrant, too

[AlphaCentauri]

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.


To comment, e-mail Ruben Navarrette Jr. at [e-mail].

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/10/ED4C116SA0.DTL