The federal officer standing over Yuliana Huicochea fired off a question that no one had asked the high school honor student before: What was her immigration status?
Huicochea knew that her parents had brought her to the United States when she was 4 years old. She experienced an all-American childhood in Phoenix, excelling in public schools, eating at IHOP, watching “Law and Order” and dreaming of becoming an attorney.
But in June 2002, when Huicochea was 17, she and some classmates had gone to a national science competition in Buffalo, N.Y. As a treat, their teachers took them to Niagara Falls on the Canadian border — where immigration officials caught up with them.
After nine hours of detention, Huicochea found out the answer to the agent’s question. She and three of her classmates, who had come to the U.S. between ages 2 and 7, were illegal immigrants. The federal government sent them back to Phoenix for deportation hearings, which have dragged on for three years.
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The four students and their classmates met after school to build a solar-powered boat and gave up their Saturdays to test it on lakes in the Phoenix suburbs. It won a regional contest, and the group flew to Buffalo for the national finals that June.
Two teachers who were escorting the students had planned a side trip to Niagara Falls during their down time. At the visitors’ center, one teacher asked if student IDs would be enough to allow them to cross to the Canadian side to get a better view of the cascades.
But immigration officials at the center spotted the students waiting outside and detained them. They told the youths during interrogation that they stood out because they were Latino.
“It was the same questions over and over again,” recalled Luis Nava. “Where did I cross? I said, ‘Man, I was like 2. I have no idea.’ ”
Millions of people illegally in this country; why hassle these four?