Brought to Connecticut as a Toddler, a 22-Year-Old Student Faces Deportation a Semester Before Graduating

Born Free?



By Jon Campbell
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 1:07pm
The Hartford Advocate

Mariano Cardoso admits he crossed the United States border illegally. He traveled into the U.S. via the Arizona desert after leaving his home in Puebla, a state in southern Mexico. He and his family made their way first to New York, before finally settling in New Britain. Although he knows what he did was illegal, he didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. He was still in diapers at the time.

Now 22, Cardoso is one semester away from receiving his associate's degree in engineering at Capital Community College. Connecticut has been his home for the past two decades, since his parents brought him here as an undocumented immigrant at 22 months old. He's been to Mexico once that he can remember, to visit his grandparents when he was 7. But he'll likely be heading to that country soon.

Cardoso is nearing the end of the legal deportation process, and his attorney has advised him that any more legal actions are likely “a waste of time and money.â€