The immigration debate in the US is often too impassioned, unreasonable and one-sided with one party demanding blanket amnesty for all and the other side demanding mass deportations for all. We’ve brought up this question in the past, what about those who become undocumented for no fault of theirs, particularly those minors who became undocumented immigrants because their parents brought them here or their parent’s visa expired?

Yves Gomes belongs to the latter group. [Silicon India]

His parents had tourist visas when they brought him at 14 months old to visit relatives in Silver Spring in 1994. His parents set about establishing legal residency, but his father’s application for political asylum was denied a few years ago, and the family was ordered to leave the country. The family stayed. However in 2008, Gomes’s father was deported to his native Bangladesh, and last year his mother was deported to her native India.

Meanwhile, Yves, who was a year old when he came here and still a minor when his parents became undocumented, was growing up like any normal American kid, and a model student at that.

But for Gomes, who took five Advanced Placement classes in his senior year at Paint Branch High School before graduating in June with a 3.8 grade-point average, it was about something else equally compelling: his future in the only country he has ever known.
“I consider myself an American,” Gomes said in an interview witha national daily. Yves has never been to India nor does he speak the language of the West Bengal region where his family is from.

Yves became entrapped in the situation involving his parents and was in line for deportation, before ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has a change of heart.

In a very major and rare sort of decision, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cancelled the deportation of the Indian Origin student Yves Gomes.
The deportation is called off. The young man, who came here as a baby and watched both his parents deported in recent years, can now stay here and pursue his American dream. Gomes is a top student and can now pursue his dream of becoming a doctor.

Was ICE justified in deporting Yves Gomes’ parents while allowing him to stay on?

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