And you thought you had it bad

This twenty-year old young lady is quite bright. She graduated from high school a year early, she has plans of becoming a lawyer, and she spent nine months helping design and build a solar-powered boat. This young lady has a future . . . but right now, it looks like that future might not be in the United States. You see, even though she is brilliant and would obviously be an asset to our country, she stands to be deported on July 21.

Welcome to the world of Yuliana Huicochea. Yuliana is like many women her age. She likes to watch "Friends", her favorite movie is "Titanic". She is more of an all-American girl than most American girls I know. Of course, she has that one trait that instantly put me in her corner . . . she loves the Beatles! In my humble opinion, any twenty-year old facing deportation who likes to listen to the Beatles should immediately be given permanent resident status. Let's see if we can't get that written into law ASAP.

Just what horrendous crime did Yuliana commit? Is she involved in terrorist activities? No. Is she part of an insidious cult seeking to brainwash the youth of America? Well, even if she is a fan of "Titanic" I'll have to give her a pass on that one too, nope, she isn't part of a cult. Perhaps she's been speaking poorly of our sacred cow of a President? Well, I would hope so, but no, the reason our government is kicking Yuliana out is because she had the effrontery to enter our country illegally at the age of four with her parents. I'm surprised they don't take her out and shoot her . . . no wait, we don't have proof she's been dissin' the prez.

Yuliana has never been arrested, never caused any trouble and even went so far as to learn the Pledge of Allegiance at the age of four . . . in English! This is someone we should be trying to recruit for citizenship, not giving the boot. Yuliana went to kindergarten, elementary school, and high school in Phoenix, AZ. She always had good grades. If we're going to educate her, we may as well see some return on our educational investment.

So how did all of this come about? Remember that solar-powered boat? She helped build that boat while she was attending Wilson Charter High School. The boat was so well designed that in 2002 the kids who made it were invited to an international competition in Upper New York State. While there, their teacher took the students on a sight-seeing tour of Niagara Falls. An immigration official noticed Yuliana and three other members of the team.

On July 21, Yuliana, along with fellow students Jaime Damian, Luis Nava and Oscar Corona will go before US Immigration Judge John Richardson for the third and probably last time. Richardson keeps putting off his legally mandated decision in the hopes Congress will step in and pass an emergency law allowing the students to stay. Unfortunately, Congress has better things to do like pass emergency laws to keep a woman in a vegetative state alive or bicker about Tom DeLay (who has actually committed more crimes than Yuliana).

So are Yuliana and her friends illegal aliens? Technically yes. And I suspect there are several others like them in this country. But what can we do? we don't have much time. We need to write and call our Congressmen immediately. I'd say we try to shame them into doing something, but since most of them have no shame perhaps it would be better if we threaten to not vote for them in the next election. That's a language even they would understand.

Yuliana and her friends are quickly running out of hope. Let's try to change that.