Denying the dream of an ‘American’

By Ruben Navarrette, UNION-TRIBUNE COLUMNIST
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 12:03 a.m.

Never mind baseball. The real national pastime is talking down illegal immigrants. We depict them negatively, crudely and simplistically. We see them as criminals, takers, predators, loafers, usurpers, etc. We define them in full based on just one characteristic: their legal status.

This is not to excuse the fact that they either came to this country illegally or overstayed a visa. As I’ve said many times, I think illegal immigrants, once detected, should be detained and deported. I just don’t see the need to demonize them in the process.

So many Americans are so sure that they have illegal immigrants figured out – even though most of us, I imagine, have never had a conversation with one. In fairness, we should hear these people out when they want to tell their side of the story.

Which brings me to an interesting exchange I had recently with a reader named Joe. He’s a 22-year-old college graduate who says he has been in the United States illegally since his parents emigrated from Lebanon when he was 8 months old. Joe thinks of himself as an American and he wants to go to law school and become an attorney. He says that he graduated from Boston College with a 3.2 GPA in a double major: political science and Arabic studies. Joe says he wants to work for the U.S. government – the same entity that has, for the last two years, been trying to deport him.

Nothing about Joe’s ordeal seems fair – least of all to him.

“I’m more American than a lot of Americans I know,â€