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An undocumented student at Harvard University is facing deportation to Mexico after he was detained by immigration authorities at a Texas airport.</p>
<p>Eric Balderas, 19, said he was detained on Monday, June 7, after trying to board a plane from his hometown of San Antonio to Boston using a consulate card from Mexico and his student ID.</p>
<p>"I'd made it through before so I thought this time wouldn't be any different," Balderas said Friday in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "But once (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) picked me up I really didn't know what to think and I was starting to break down."</p>
<p>Balderas said he previously used a Mexican passport but recently lost it. He said he thought he would be deported back to Mexico immediately, but was released the next day. He has a scheduled immigration hearing on July 6. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said his hearing will likely be in Boston.
<p>Eric’s case is certainly tragic (and my thoughts are with him and his friends and family), but I think the bigger tragedy is the tens of thousands (maybe even millions?) of undocumented high school students in this country who are left without any post-secondary options. Unless these students can get into a need-blind/citizenship-blind school like Harvard or Yale, or live in one of the few states that give undocumented students in-state tuition, their options in life are severely limited. Immigration reform is long overdue.</p>
<p>Even with a Harvard degree, they are ineligible to work anywhere in the U.S. How do you envision a U.S. college degree increasing their life options?</p>
<p>What an interesting life-lesson for the privileged elite at Harvard: obey the law or you don’t get the benefits you think you are entitled to. Sad as it is, this guy should not have been in the United States in the first place, much less at Harvard. There were plenty of equally well-qualified but lawful applicants who were denied a spot at Harvard the year he applied. Let one of them have the spot.</p>
<p>Harvard and Yale aren’t “citizenship-blind.” Nor is any other U.S. college as far as I know. There is a quota that caps the number of international students (those without U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status). The colleges don’t admit more than their quota. I believe this is a result of some rule for federal funding/grants.</p>
<p>Also, elite schools are typically are only need-blind for U.S. citizens/permanent residents.</p>
<p>Except they obviously weren’t equally-qualified or he wouldn’t have been given the spot. There is no such thing as pro-illegal immigrant affirmative action, buddy.</p>
<p>@collegealum314 - Can you show me where you’ve read about an international student quota at Harvard (or similar schools)? I know that Harvard is need-blind for international students (but you are right that they are rare in this respect).</p>
<p>@snavedriver - I’m not really going to engage in this debate, because I feel like our views are pretty intractable. But I encourage you to spend some time working with immigrant families (legal and illegal), and see how your opinions change. I know I would have been much more sympathetic to your viewpoint before I actually met undocumented families and got to hear their stories.</p>
<p>I’m trying to duck this debate but sorry Dwight I am going to argue one statement you made.
Regardless of who this young man is and his heritage or background, for the most part there are many many equally qualified applicants for every spot. Harvard could fill each of their classes with a different group of equally qualified candidates several times over every year. Any Harvard student who believes that there was no one denied admission who was equally qualified (with maybe a rare few exceptions) is mistaken.</p>
<p>“Qualified” is probably a bad term. I know what you’re saying, and what you’re saying is said many times and is accepted as conventional wisdom. It’s true that Harvard rejects a number of talented students. Harvard rejects a number of students who would succeed at Harvard, and a number of students who would succeed at Harvard to a greater extent than I ever will. But everyone who is accepted to Harvard is by definition more qualified for admission. There is something that made Harvard accept them, and something that made them not accept the other kid.</p>
<p>This isn’t true if Harvard admissions are rolling, which they’re not. This also isn’t true if Harvard is just trying to “build a class,” as many have said. Nothing makes the oboe player more qualified if Harvard is just trying to make sure it has an oboe player. But I really doubt it works like that. Harvard’s early stage admissions are regional, so the Harvard admissions officers in New England doesn’t know how many oboe players the officers in the Midwest are admitting. Even if they did, someone has to decide which oboe player wins and that deciding factor makes them more qualified.</p>
<p>Maybe “qualified” should read “qualified for Harvard,” because what makes a Harvard admit more qualified may not make him or her more qualified at another school. But the fact that she or he was accepted means there was some factor that put them over the edge. To make an argument that Eric was “taking up a legitimate person’s spot” means that there was a spot for the legitimate person at all. Eric got it and person X didn’t because Eric was more qualified.</p>
<p>^ Dwight, you’ve expressed your point well but I still am not convinced. Three factors lend me to believe that that there is not a direct one for one correlation for each spot at Harvard. These are the 29,112 applicants for the class of 2013, the secret number of waitlisted students each year, and those applicants who were accepted yet turned Harvard down. The last two are most pertinent. Every year, Harvard admits with the understanding that a certain percentage of acceptees will be rejecting them. Therefore as they make their offers, they know that they cannot control exactly the makeup of the next year’s class. As for those who are on the wait list? Harvard has recognized them as applicants who could meld well with those already accepted to the incoming class or they would not even make the list. As for the 29,112 applicants, with that volume there has to be many others suitable. Sometimes it is just luck that determines which high scoring oboe players get reviewed first or has a better advocate as an AC.</p>
<p>As my daughter’s mother, I of course think the world of her but I realize that had she not been admitted to Harvard’s class of 2013 (or had she turned them down), Harvard’s world would not have ended. Some other talented young person would be there in her stead. If I am willing to state this about my own child, then I should be allowed to unfortunately extrapolate that had Eric not been admitted and someone else had, the class of 2013 would still be an outstanding group (please everyone understand that this is no judgement on Eric, I do not know him). </p>
<p>I am sure for you Dwight that the experience may be little different from the rest of us. I am assuming that, since you are in the same class and same dorm, you likely know Eric and the idea of his never being admitted and being someone you never knew is a difficult one. For those of us who have no personal connection, he is just another applicant like any other.</p>
<p>Of course the class of 2013 would still be an outstanding group. Of course the person admitted in place of Eric (or whomever) would still be talented and a contribution to the campus. I am not proposing that those who received Harvard acceptance letters in April 2009 are the only people who could thrive in a Harvard environment. I’m merely saying that, in the eyes of Harvard admissions, those people were the best choices and by that very definition were more qualified. I don’t see how anyone could argue the contrary unless they believed that there is some sort of raw luck in the admissions process. I don’t believe that. Subjectivity, sure. But pure, random luck of the draw? I don’t think anyone is drawing straws over in Cambridge.</p>
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<p>I actually didn’t know him well. I just find it hard to believe that given that some factor made some people receive an acceptance letter and some not, it is legitimate to say that Eric or anyone else “took up a spot.” He (and they) earned it by gaining admission, while someone that was rejected has no further claim to that spot. This isn’t to say that they’re less intelligent or less poised for success. If it were up to me, I could think of plenty of people more deserving of my spot than me. But I guess my point is that, it’s a different story in Harvard’s eyes.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to sound like I don’t understand your position. I do. I’ve argued it in the past. I’m just not as confident in its tenability anymore. But you are certainly arguing your point well.</p>
<p>I actually do believe in that luck factor. When I say luck, I am not negating the fact that if the person is not qualified then all the luck in the world will not get them accepted. But I do think there are some luck factors that exist. Did the AC pick up the stack on the right instead of the stack on the left to read first and therefore your application was read earlier and was more fresh an interesting? Did the applicant have the luck of getting an interviewer who wanted their people accepted? (This in my opinion was my daughter’s “luck”.) Did Harvard’s star sophomore oboist flunk out and now Harvard has a need that gives an applicant the luck of Harvard having an unexpected need?</p>
<p>Right or wrong, I have been told repeatedly that there is a slight bit of luck factor in admissions. So I am not the only one with this belief. (This is also why those who are denied admission should also not take offense by not being admitted.)</p>
<p>I’m confused. has anyone said this young man was not as good as anybody else in the class? I have heard he is a very bright, personable, serious student. Why assume he was not one of the best and brightest?</p>
<p>^ I don’t think think any of us have stated that he was not equal to his peers. Whether he was superior to his peers, which you may be implying in your last question, is something that I doubt anyone on CC knows him well enough to state.</p>
<p>I am sure Eric is very talented, and that his family is very nice. That’s not my point. </p>
<p>The flip side of this is the damage done to Mexico. There is a brain drain, of which this is but one example. If we want Mexico to advance past the second- or borderline third-world status they occupy now then they need people like Eric doing molecular biology and such like there. But this guy has no intention of doing that.</p>
<p>The other aspect of it that bothers me is the sheer hypocrisy. We know Harvard (and it’s ilk) apply racial preferences. No doubt Eric’s ancestry and background were factors in his admission, while other perhaps BETTER qualified applicants were denied admission because they came from white, middle-class families in the U.S. I’ll bet his heritage was an important part of Eric’s application, yet now he expresses horror at the notion of being sent back to Mexico. But that is precisely where he should be until he is able to obtain lawful immigration status, at which point he can continue his education. Or he can apply his talent at one of the fine universities in Mexico, where students like him are very much needed.</p>
<p>Harvard places itself above the law, and no doubt that is the result they will achieve. This kid will be protected because he is deemed special. Meanwhile, many many people deemed less worthy get deported every day. If I were King of America I’d open the border and allow free movement of people throughout the Americas, but I am not and the law is what it is. This guy should be deported.</p>
<p>Er. Perhaps he should finish gaining the necessary skills here before being sent back to Mexico, where he will not receive the same level of opportunities available at Harvard.</p>
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<p>So the fact that he is Mexican means he should be overjoyed to be in Mexico?
Let me ask this: if someone came from Cambodia’s killing fields and had that considered in their application, would people question why they were not leaping with delight at the prospect of going back before the situation had been somewhat reversed?</p>
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<p>The educational systems and opportunities available in Mexico do not equal Harvard’s or those of the United States, and he most likely would not be able to do molecular biology at its more advanced levels there. </p>
<p>This is a very sad situation and an illustration of why we need immigration reform.</p>