What's the Plan B if you get deported? A generational divide

The L.A. Times reports:

Karla is about the age her father was when he came to a much more hostile California. She's living through another period of strong rhetoric against illegal immigration, with Republican presidential candidates, led by billionaire businessman Donald Trump, talking about mass deportations, criminal immigrants and building giant walls along the Mexican border.

But she's also living in a state where last month Gov. Jerry Brown signed immigration-related measures that included one that removed the word "alien" from California's labor code. He also signed legislation allowing noncitizens in high school to serve as election poll workers and protecting the rights of immigrant minors in civil suits. The state also allows people in the country illegally to obtain driver's licenses.

Since the last mass legalization in 1986, there are at least two main generations of people who are in the country without legal status, said Roberto Gonzales, a Harvard sociologist.


"Compared to their parents, undocumented youth are more connected to the people and places that surround them," he said. "Relationships with native-born peers and teachers instruct them that they can achieve the American dream — to believe that, if they work hard and play by the rules, they will have opportunities to become whatever they choose."

It's nice to hear a Harvard sociologist talk about someone breaking federal immigration law "playing by the rules".