How rigidly should this nation’s immigration laws be enforced? Should undocumented immigrants, when caught, be deported regardless of the immigration status of their family members, regardless of the potentially devastating consequences of such action, regardless whether it forces parents who are here illegally to choose between leaving their American-born children behind or tearing them away from all that is safe and familiar? At the very least, should immigration judges have some discretion in determining what is best for the child and family? These questions and others are raised by the following article in the Washington Post:

Pleading to Stay a Family

As the government’s crackdown on illegal immigrant workers has intensified in recent months, so have the consequences for a large subgroup of U.S. citizens: American-born children of illegal immigrants.

Numbering at least 3.1 million, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute and the Pew Hispanic Center, such children range from teenagers steeped in iTunes and MySpace to toddlers just learning their ABCs.

Until recently, their parents’ illegal status had limited impact on these children’s lives, because, although every year hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are detained attempting to cross the U.S. border, once they make it in, they are rarely caught.

But the increase in raids against companies employing illegal workers is beginning to change that.

In December, immigration agents descended on six meat-processing plants belonging to Swift & Co. and arrested 1,297 illegal workers. At one plant, in Worthington, Minn., the workers had at least 360 U.S.-born children and probably many more, according to a local pastor who raised money for them.

Similarly, of 361 workers arrested during a raid of the Michael Bianco Inc. manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Mass., last month, about 90 were the sole caregivers for one or more children in the United States, according to federal and state authorities.

On Thursday, a chubby-cheeked fifth-grader named Jessica Guncay joined the ranks of such children when immigration agents raided a Dixie Printing and Packaging Corp. plant in Baltimore, where her parents were working under false Social Security numbers.

During an interview in her home in Pikesville the next day, Jessica, 10, said that although she had known her Ecuadoran parents were in the country illegally, she never imagined they would be arrested.

“I feel sick inside,” she mumbled, staring at her white sneakers. [full text]

The article goes on to note that, “under rules adopted by Congress in 1996, a judge cannot allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States merely because they have a child who is a U.S. citizen. Instead, parents must prove that if they were deported the child would suffer ‘exceptional and extremely unusual hardship’ — a standard often interpreted to apply to serious medical cases only.” However, some in Congress are proposing to change this strict rule. Rep. José Serrano (D-NY) has introduced a bill, the Child Citizen Protection Act (H.R. 1176), that would “provide discretionary authority to an immigration judge to determine that an alien parent of a United States citizen child should not be ordered removed, deported, or excluded from the United States.” Please consider contacting your members of Congress and encouraging their support for this common sense reform.