Political Quotes

“15 years ago, a woman contacted my office in Chicago because she had a problem. It turned out that her daughter, who was about 17 years old or 18 years old at the time, had an extraordinary musical talent and had been accepted as a student at the Manhattan School of Music, as well as at the Juilliard School in New York. The problem was that her daughter was undocumented. She brought her little girl to the United States at the age of 2. This Korean girl, Tereza Lee, was raised in the United States by a family of very modest means, but she showed extraordinary talent at music, so much so that she was accepted at these great schools. When she went to fill out the application form and they asked for her nationality or citizenship status, she turned to her mother and said: What should I put here? Her mother said: Well, I never filed any papers after we brought you to this country, so I don't know. They called our office. The law was very clear. This young girl, who for 15 or 16 years had grown up in Chicago in modest circumstances, gone to school, done well, and excelled in her music, was in fact undocumented. Under the law of the United States of America, the only recourse for her--and it is still the case--was to leave this country for 10 years and apply to come back. I thought to myself: This little girl had nothing to say when the family decided to move to the United States when she was 2 years of age. She wasn't consulted. She didn't make a conscious decision.…”