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Comment by NearAP | Hacker News Reader

>> And that the Democratic party wants a path to full citizenship for anyone who manages to stay in the country long enough.<<

Full path to citizenship is for those who 'were brought as kids/infants' i.e. who had no say in how they came into the country. If they are still minors and need their parents, then some 'form of stay' for their parents.

If you cross the border illegally as an adult and barring any special circumstances, you will most likely be deported. It would also be difficult to get a professional job since a lot of companies participate in the eVerify program.

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DACA is a true slap in the face to everyone who made the decision to follow and respect the law.

> Full path to citizenship is for those who 'were brought as kids/infants' i.e. who had no say in how they came into the country.

It's true they had no say, but as adults they do have a say and can decide to leave at any time and apply for the proper visa from their country.

There are people who come at a young enough age, e.g. as infants, and don't know anything at all about their "home" country. They may not even know the language very well, if at all. They likely don't have a single memory of the place.

So while technically you're right - as adults they have a say - it's asking quite a lot. Very few people would move to a (likely much poorer) country with no social support, and likely with no money, just because of a decision their parents made. For all intents and purposes their home is the US, and their identity is American.

> their country.

If someone has lived in the same country for the entirety of the life that they can recollect, most people would consider that "their country". Your strict viewpoint also presents the opportunity for absurd scenarios when coupled with birthright citizenship, for example a Mexican woman is giving birth to twins...one comes out on the south side of the Rio Grande, and the other comes out 5 minutes later on the north side of the Rio Grande. According to you, 18 years later the first born would have no respect for the law, and the second born would be some kind of pure embodiment of America.

> DACA is a true slap in the face to everyone who made the decision to follow and respect the law.

It's different if you had a choice in the matter but how does DACA affect the decisions that you made? If you knew that DACA was going to be a thing, would you have decided to illegally immigrate instead? I think that would have been pretty much impossible if you were a kid.

> apply for the proper visa from their country

If you've been living in the US for as long as you can remember then the US is your own country.

DACA is a workaround for people who are functionally "American" but not legally so. Them moving "back to Mexico" would work out about as well as telling a bunch of people working in car factories to move to Mexico to keep their job.

Also, the law itself is a slap in the face to everyone who made the decision to follow and respect the law. Immigration law is deliberately designed to be at least a little dehumanizing to the immigrant: it's NIMBYism, but for people instead of duplexes. The only thing that we should be giving the people who followed the law is an apology for having to go through such a nightmare. We absolutely should not retain such a restrictive system purely for the sake of making people who followed it feel like their sunk costs went into something.

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