There is a 10 year ban on applying for any visa once you leave. My family, friends, and home are all here. I have no one where my parents came from. Leaving turns into a 20 year ordeal to see them again. Would you do it? Would you do it at 23?
In general, going somewhere else is not possible at all for many. Before one can go somewhere else he has to go back to his country of citizenship. Often thats simply not possible. Yet another case are stateless individuals who have nowhere to go period.
Even if you ignore all the human rights issues and look at the problem from an economically pragmatic point of view, it doesn't make any sense to maintain the status quo. Why should educated and obviously needed Americans be forced out of their homes and shipped out? To "not encourage illegal immigration in the future." Thats the argument I hear. Am I supposed to be a casualty of a political statement? I don't feel anything but American, so the people who wage the "cultural war" for votes and ratings can go ___ themselves. I'm fighting for my rights.
It seems that you have a good grasp of the reasons put forward against giving you citizenship. A lot of them boil down to rule of law arguments of some sort avoiding arbitrary rules that let you cherry pick the people you want (educated, productive, culturally American, etc.).
Maintaining the ability to keep people out when they want in requires cruelty. The tighter you want to keep the control, the crueller. The more they want in, the crueller. If you want to really really close a border, you need to be willing to kill people.
Have you ever considered going in to some sort of open battle about this. You're educated. It seems like you have the ability to articulate your position well. You would be able to gain empathy from Americans who will see you as an American under threat of deportation. Are there any support/advice channels for illegal immigrants in the NY?
He/she might be deported, that's not a very smart thing to do.
When you're illegal somewhere your best chance is to lay low until there is some legislation that favors you.
Here in NL there was a guy from Turkey, that had started his own business. Very very successful, in fact, so successful that a newspaper decided to use him as the poster child for illegal immigrants that should get a passport.
Not that long afterwards he was deported, simply for having become 'visible'.
