Princeton's 2006 Salutatorian Heads To Oxford, Still an Illegal Immigrant

This case is really a testament to the remarkable capacity of a bureaucracy for inhumane utter stupidity.  Peralta represents the very best of what our nation stands for -- and we're doing our best to drive him away?!?!?!!?

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Princeton's 2006 Salutatorian Heads To Oxford, Still an Illegal Immigrant

By MIRIAM JORDAN
September 14, 2006; Page B1

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115819403186062558-search.html

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, an illegal immigrant studying at Princeton University, last spring risked his future by turning himself into U.S. authorities. The star student wanted to accept a prestigious scholarship to attend Oxford University in Britain, but he faced being barred from re-entering the U.S. for a decade if the U.S. government didn't change his immigration status.

Tomorrow, Mr. Padilla will leave the country to begin his studies at Oxford's Worcester College. But his future remains in limbo, and he has no guarantee he can come back to the U.S.

Mr. Padilla, the subject of a front-page profile in The Wall Street Journal in April, was brought to the U.S. by his parents at the age of four from the Dominican Republic and overcame a childhood in homeless shelters and slums to become an award-winning classics student at Princeton. After he got the Oxford scholarship, Mr. Padilla asked the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to adjust his immigration status, citing the extraordinary circumstances in his life -- including moving 13 times and being abandoned by his father -- that had prevented him from addressing his situation sooner.