I am glad to see that the tone of discussion is back to where we all like it.
I am a pediatrician with a very large Spanish patient base and meet families who are not in legal status on a daily basis and perhaps have a better perspective of where the discussion stands amongst them.
I feel it might be easier to illustrate with a few examples I have had recently as the stories will illustrate their plight better than pages of prose.
Last year as I was getting ready for our lunch break,a mother and her son aged 17 whom I have known for 7 years came to meet me. The boy was the oldest of 3 children the younger two being citizens being born here.He was a high school senior and was really excited about the DACA order that President Obama had recently passed. I helped him with a lot of documentation from office records dating back to 2006 to establish proof of residency and also agreed to attest a notarized affidavit for the same.The family said that the school authorities were not receptive to their needs and they had no other alternative than to approach us. He was granted the status and he was ecstatic-his actual words were "I never thought I would ever get this chance".More recently he has joined the nursing program at our local community college and thanked us again when he came in to have his TB skin testing done. It pained me when the house GOP passed the amendment defunding the DACA on Jun 6 but I feel it was posturing at its best and most of them are sympathetic to DREAMERs
I have another child in my practice who is 4 and his mother was deported 2 years ago to Guatemala.As she had re-entered illegally she was barred from entry for 10 years.I am struggling with behavioral and sleep problems in this child who is awake most of the night screaming for his mother. The father will not send him to Guatemala as he is afraid they will keep the child there and never send him back. I can close my eyes and count at least 20 other children where one of the parents has been deported in my practice
I have 2 children in my practice whose father and their uncle (in their 30s now) migrated illegally from Honduras 10 years ago. They are the only 2 children of their grandmother who is still back in the Honduras with advanced uterine cancer. It was heart breaking for me when the children's mother told me in Spanish "Whenever we call her all she keeps saying is if I could only hug the boys for 5 minutes before I die" Unfortunately both the parents are illegal and even though the children (ages 3 & 5) are citizens there is nobody to take them there.
I could go on and on but the only reason I bring this up is that in all the above cases all the families are looking for is some legal status where they can lead a normal life and be able to travel to their home countries and be able to return safely.I can assure you that citizenship is the furthest thing from their minds at this time. I quote from Rep Carter (TX) one of the House Group of 8 in the following article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3180612.html
It (the House Bill)has compassion. It allows people to be human beings, to live a normal life, to have a job, to take care of their family, to pay their taxes, to obey the law and go about their lives."
The Republicans will not likely agree to a Special pathway to citizenship like W visas etc but will allow some form of legalization that allows people to stay here and continue to lead their lives and be united with their family. They will most likely be allowed to convert to Green cards through existing channels examples being if they have US born children or have US spouses who can sponsor them or employment based sponsorship etc. We keep talking about pressure on the GOP but if the talks reach a point where the GOP stands firm and is willing for legalization but no special pathway, the winds can change just as quick and the Democrats will be under pressure to accept the deal from the Latino community. At least deportations will stop and families can stay together,travel abroad, buy homes etc. Qs point about whether this makes them second class citizens can be debated till the cows come home.I wish to point out that at any time in this country there are millions of people who are in legal non-immigrant status and seem to lead normal lives