Raised in the U.S., but still illegal: how should the U.S. treat a million young people who were brought here illegally as children?

• Author: Preston, Julia
• Position: NATIONAL

Rigoberto Padilla was an honors student at Harold Washington College in Chicago when he was arrested in January 2009 after running a red light. But Padilla soon had a much bigger problem on his hands: Because parents had brought him to the U.S. from Mexico illegally when he was six years old, Padilla, now 21, faced deportation to a country he hardly knew.

For many years, the United States has been wrestling with its immigration policies, and how to handle the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here.

But as Padilla's case highlights, there's a subset of illegal immigrants who elicit some sympathy even from staunch opponents of immigration: those who were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children. More than 1 million young people fit this description, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

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And despite the risk that speaking out might result in their deportation, these young people, many of them students, are now taking the lead in pushing for immigration reform.

In January, four immigrant students at Miami Dade College began a four-month walk from Miami to Washington, D.C., to protest the lack of action on legislation granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

They say they have a "deep desire and need for complete citizenship" after reaching dead-ends in school or work because of their lack of legal status. The protesters include Carlos Roa, 22, who was 2 when his parents brought him here from Venezuela, and Felipe Matos, 23, who was sent from Brazil by his mother when he was 14.

Matos, a former student government president at Miami Dade, was accepted by Duke University in North Carolina but was unable to attend because he couldn't apply for financial aid. Trained as a teacher, he hasn't been able to accept a job because he doesn't have a valid Social Security number.

The marchers are pushing for passage of legislation known as the Dream Act. It would provide illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were under 16 and graduate from American high schools with a conditional path to citizenship if they agree to spend two years in college or do military service.

The idea behind the Dream Act is that the U.S. should assimilate, rather than expel, dedicated young people who are not at fault for their illegal status.

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"Maybe our parents feel like immigrants, but we feel like Americans because we have been raised here on American values," says Carlos Saavedra...