Immigration Test Leaves Star Students in Free-Fall

The federal officer standing over Yuliana Huicochea fired off a question that no one had asked the high school honor student before: What was her immigration status?

Huicochea knew that her parents had brought her to the United States when she was 4 years old. She experienced an all-American childhood in Phoenix, excelling in public schools, eating at IHOP, watching “Law and Order” and dreaming of becoming an attorney.

But in June 2002, when Huicochea was 17, she and some classmates had gone to a national science competition in Buffalo, N.Y. As a treat, their teachers took them to Niagara Falls on the Canadian border -- where immigration officials caught up with them.

After nine hours of detention, Huicochea found out the answer to the agent’s question. She and three of her classmates, who had come to the U.S. between ages 2 and 7, were illegal immigrants. The federal government sent them back to Phoenix for deportation hearings, which have dragged on for three years.

On Thursday, the four face what is expected to be their final hearing. Their lawyers will make a last-ditch effort to allow them to stay in what the young people consider their home country. If that does not succeed, Huicochea and her former classmates will have to sever their connections with friends and family and return to Mexico, a place they barely remember.

Even as deportation loomed, the four have tried to go on with their lives. One tore through Arizona State University in three years to make sure that he got his degree. Another has married and now has an 18-month-old son. A third wants a career in the U.S. military. Huicochea has been taking community college courses; she recently moved to the desert town where her father lives to spend as much time with him as possible.

Although the four for legal reasons will not publicly name their home country, the U.S. government has identified it as Mexico.

Huicochea, now 20, dreads that destination. She’s heard of the crime and violence south of the border, and wonders how a single woman could survive there.

“It’s terrifying that they might put you in a place where you have nowhere you can go,” Huicochea said. “Why do I have to pay for decisions that I didn’t make?”

Even some who oppose illegal immigration acknowledge that the case of the so-called Wilson Four -- named after their high school -- has no easy answers.

“These are the hardest kind of cases and the consequence of a broken immigration policy,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. “These kids should have never been allowed to grow up in the United States because they and their parents should have been intercepted before things got this far.”

Krikorian said there was little room for making legal exceptions in places like Arizona, which had been flooded with illegal immigration. “If there were 100,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S., it would be easier to say: ‘OK, we’re going to give you a pass.’ With 11 million, it undermines the entire system,” he said. “There is no easy way out of this, and whatever we do is going to be painful and difficult.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in Phoenix said most deportation proceedings in the region -- which had the greatest volume of illegal immigration in the nation -- involved convicted criminals. But, he said, when another office brings in a deportation case, it has to go forward.

In the case of the Wilson Four, it was the students’ desire to excel that put them in jeopardy.

The students had signed up for a special workshop in solar technology.

“If you say solar energy, you’re thinking about college kids and universities,” said Oscar Corona, now 20. “But something like that coming into our high school -- you can’t let that opportunity pass you by.”

The four students and their classmates met after school to build a solar-powered boat and gave up their Saturdays to test it on lakes in the Phoenix suburbs. It won a regional contest, and the group flew to Buffalo for the national finals that June.

Two teachers who were escorting the students had planned a side trip to Niagara Falls during their down time. At the visitors’ center, one teacher asked if student IDs would be enough to allow them to cross to the Canadian side to get a better view of the cascades.

But immigration officials at the center spotted the students waiting outside and detained them. They told the youths during interrogation that they stood out because they were Latino.

“It was the same questions over and over again,” recalled Luis Nava. “Where did I cross? I said, ‘Man, I was like 2. I have no idea.’ ”

After returning home, the students were faced with the realization that they might be deported. So they traveled to Washington to lobby for a bill to grant amnesty to children of illegal immigrants, but the measure died amid a backlash against illegal immigration.

Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.) recently introduced a bill to allow the youths to stay in the U.S., but it faced long odds in Congress.

Since that day they were stopped at Niagara Falls, the four have reacted to the possibility of deportation differently.

Nava, who graduated high school in three years and whose younger brother was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after the trip to Buffalo, rushed to earn his business degree from Arizona State.

While his college classmates are able to take on internships or start their careers, Nava is in limbo. “I should start sending off applications and going to career fairs,” he said.

Jaime Damian, who also graduated high school in three years, dropped out of community college after one semester. He returned to school this summer. “When I’m in school, I can’t even stay focused,” said Damian, 20.

He lives with his mother and three younger brothers in a four-bedroom ranch house on a street lined with American flags, and dreams of joining the Air Force. He tries to spend as much time as possible with his girlfriend and 4-year-old brother -- who, he said, his voice choking, “is, like, everything to me.”

“I don’t want to go back,” Damian said. “All my dreams and friends are here.”

Corona found out not long after graduating that his high school sweetheart was pregnant. Their son, Nathan Xavier, was born in October 2003.

The couple married earlier this year. Although Corona’s wife is an American citizen, that may not help him because he entered the country illegally. At best, said Judy Flanagan, a lawyer for the Wilson Four, Corona may have to wait nearly a year in Mexico before getting a visa to be reunited with his son.

“What am I doing wrong to society that I should be punished by going to Mexico?” Corona said. “I did everything I was supposed to do as I was growing up. Don’t break the law, go to school, learn new things.”

Flanagan said the four might have to agree to voluntarily leave the country if she was unable to win leniency Thursday. If the youths were formally deported, it might make it more difficult for them to secure a visa to return to the U.S.

The four talk warily about their parents, who have not been targeted by immigration officials. In high-immigration areas like Phoenix, federal officials typically spend most of their time pursuing convicted criminals and try not to break up families.

“I don’t think anyone’s at fault for coming to this country to make a better life for themselves,” Flanagan said.

But to focus on the children of illegal immigrants, Flanagan said, was especially wrong. “They didn’t have any part in that decision when they were 2 or 3,” she said. “It just shows how screwed up our immigration laws are.”