Against the recommendation of the US State Department, I recently took a short trip across the US-Mexico border. Less than 100 miles south from Ajo, Arizona sits the coastal town of Puerto Penasco or Rocky Point.

Once a sleepy fishing village accessible only by boat or a treacherous dirt road, Rocky Point has become the weekend vacation spot and spring break get-away for thousands of Arizonans. Where the dustiest part of the northwestern Sonora Desert meets the sea, high-rise condos have sprung up along with gringo-owned bars with names like Camel Toe, Manny’s, JJ’s Cantina, and Thirsty Parrot.

English is spoken by nearly every resident, Mexican or American, making this a near cultural wasteland for anyone who really wants to get to know México. It’s too close to the United States and too far from any major city. Lonely Planet says Rocky Point “is not the quaint little seaside town it used to be. It has become a gringo free-for-all and is now home to so many non-natives that it has basically become the seaside retirement community Arizona never had.” Moreover, there is “not a hint of Mexican culture.

Nonetheless, I succeeded in finding something akin to “culture,” and I never felt threatened by AK-47-toting drug lords. Luckily, Rocky Point has been able to avoid Mexico’s violent drug war, which claimed nearly 6,000 lives last year and almost 1,000 so far this year, so I felt comfortable asking a lot of questions. I even found some intellectual stimulation in the life stories of two Mexicans, especially when their stories made me think of a third news story an immigration attorney recently sent me. Together these three stories forced me to reflect upon a piece of legislation that will hopefully be resurrected during the Obama administration.

First introduced in the Senate in 2005, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, is a truly humanitarian proposal to legalize the status of the approximately 60,000 high school graduates each year who are not citizens or legal residents. These young adults are victims of not only the sins of their parents but also a broken and unjust immigration system. They are hamstrung in life because they cannot attend most colleges, enlist in the armed forces, or pursue a true career. And they are subject to arrest followed by deportation proceedings at almost any time.

The DREAM Act would provide a path to legal residency and eventual citizenship for young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents when they were children. Residing in the United States for most of their lives, graduating from high school or serving in the military, and staying out of trouble are the most important requirements.

The following stories should evoke varying degrees of sympathy, but only one individual would be a candidate for the DREAM Act, and it’s probably too late for him.

Story #1: The Drug Dealer. Every drug dealer has a street name and some sort of weird spiel or strange tale to tell. And Spider Man, who was always lurking outside my hotel, insisted on telling me his life story. Indeed all drug dealers lie, and Spider Man is probably no different, but he is certainly a charismatic and colorful character. A victim of polio as a child, Spider Man hobbles through the streets of Rocky Point balanced on a short staff in one hand and an aluminum crutch up his other arm. Spider Man along with his mother and brother crossed the border illegally with the aid of a coyote, or human trafficker, when he was five or six years old, and he speaks better English than he does Spanish.

Spider Man always knew he was in the United States illegally, but it didn’t stop him from dabbling in drugs and hanging out with gang bangers through high school. However, he managed to stay under the law enforcement radar, at least until after graduation.

Perhaps due to his immigration status and physical challenges, Spider Man saw few legitimate career options as a young adult. So, he took to the lucrative business of trafficking large quantities of cocaine, transporting kilos from city to city across the United States. Eventually, the authorities caught him in Florida with more than a kilo, which resulted in a conviction, a three-year incarceration, and his eventual deportation.

Spider Man spends is days and nights sidling up to anyone he deems a potential customer, and he says he knows everyone in Rocky Point, including the police commander. He boasts that he can get you anything, from cocaine to prostitutes. Despite his plight, he has few regrets and apparently runs a brisk business hooking up gringo tourists, including an Italian national staying at my hotel. It seems Spider Man is multilingual, having learned Italian from his cellmate in the Big House.

I only feel sorry for Spider Man because life dealt him a bad deck of cards, but let’s face it. He’s a hard-core criminal, and he has no chance of ever returning to the United States legally.

Story #2: The Bartender. You can’t help but like Antonio. He’s handsome, charismatic, and speaks perfect English, which was why I started asking him personal questions in the first place. I expected a bartender in one of the nicest hotels in Rocky Point to speak some English, but I always prefer to speak Spanish with Mexicans in Mexico. It always works to my benefit. However, “Tony” kept falling back on his English, which I discovered was really his first language. Tony, it turns out, spent nearly all of his thirty years of life in the United States. He was deported last year after authorities discovered he had been using someone else’s Social Security number.

Tony crossed the border before his second birthday. His mother had “borrowed” the necessary documents so she and Tony could cross to meet up with her husband, Tony’s father, who was working illegally in the United States. Both parents legalized their status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, but for some reason Tony’s mother never told Tony he was not a citizen or legal resident, so he unknowingly remained in immigration limbo.

Tony grew up like so many other immigrant children from Mexico, speaking broken Spanish at home and English everywhere else. He graduated from high school and attended a technical institute, which helped him break into the construction industry, eventually becoming a supervisor in a large company. By nearly all accounts, Tony was a successful and productive “citizen” and surrogate father. He paid taxes, owned a home, drove a nice truck, and had a pretty girlfriend with two children from a prior relationship. However, Tony liked to drink a bit too much, and three DUIs in Arizona brought him to the attention of immigration authorities.

After being deported, Tony’s parents arranged for him to import his truck into Mexico. He then drove to Zacatecas to stay with his grandparents and improve his Spanish. He said he chose Rocky Point because it’s easy for his family to visit and because there’s a burgeoning community of deported U.S. high-school graduates.

It’s impossible to not feel some sympathy for Tony.

Story #3: The Honor Student. Noe Guzman’s story appeared in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch opinion piece, “Watching Dreams Unravel,” by Bill McClellan, Jan. 25, 2009. Noe is a senior honor student at New Haven High School in Missouri. He is a member of the student council and the Future Business Leaders of America. “In other words,” as McClellan notes, “Noe is a small-town kid with big dreams. Sadly, Noe’s dreams are in the process of unraveling. That process began when Noe decided to join the Marine Corps.” In St. Louis, Noe took the Armed Services Vocational Battery Test and did very well. When he returned to take the physical exam in August, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer told him that his Social Security number really wasn’t his, he was an illegal alien, and he was under arrest.

Noe’s hands were cuffed and his legs shackled, but he was allowed to call his mother, who arrived to tell him that indeed he was not a citizen or a legal resident. They had fled an abusive father in Mexico and had crossed the border illegally. Noe’s mother confessed that she had purchased the Social Security card for him.

Thankfully, Noe was released on his own recognizance rather than disappearing into ICE’s Kafkaesque and inhumane detention system. It is not uncommon practice for ICE to neither confirm nor deny someone is being held, sometimes for weeks. ICE’s objective is to try to get the detainee to sign their own deportation order before he or she can speak with a lawyer.

ICE officers told Noe he has little chance of remaining in the United States since he has no dependent children. Noe’s next deportation hearing is next month. A sympathetic judge could issue a “Cancellation of Removal” order in such a situation. However to be generally eligible, the following criteria must be met: 1) Minimum of 10 years continuous physical presence inside the United States, 2) “Good Moral Character,” which is the most controversial and difficult to prove, and 3) “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a U.S. Citizen or Legal Permanent Resident spouse, child, or parent of the illegal alien. Usually, the judge is looking for some sort of health difficulty for the legally present spouse/child/parent that could not be treated in the place where the alien would be deported.

If an application for “Cancellation of Removal” is denied, it is possible to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals where such a case could sit for years, which might be enough time for the Dream Act to be resurrected.

Noe would be a perfect candidate for the DREAM Act. Put simply, it is unfair to punish Noe for the sins of his mother. He should be allowed to legalize his status in the United States. Deporting any individual in his situation is a shameful act that goes against the values and ideals of this country.

Vincent T. Gawronski is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Birmingham-Southern College. He can be reached at vgawrons@bsc.edu.