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From washingtonpost.com:
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.
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.
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Posted on April 3, 2007 10:15 PM
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