The DREAMer narrative gets old

Most news accounts on the Jessica Colotl case, that of a DREAMer activist whose DACA status was revoked for having an arrest record, and is being sent back home to Puebla, Mexico, carefully outline the typical narrative in such cases. They're all honor students. They're all achievers. They're all children forced to come to the U.S. through no fault of their own, via their parents, who brought them here illegally. They're all victims of circumstance and "unwitting" political activists. They're all wonderful citizens in all but name only, save for that one little lack of papers. They're all entitled. There's never any dimension to the narrative – which is why Colotl's case is being painted as an outrage in lower-quality news reporting outfits, such as Fox News, and with a bit more disguised objectivity in the likes of the New York Times. Breitbart may be an exception, but it often leaves questions unasked.

For example, what's wrong with life in Mexico after getting a full ride from the gringos in education? Why is being sent back to Mexico always depicted as the pit of hell when a deportation is the issue, but at any other time, it's a fairly well heeled third-world country, where most people live pretty well? Why is it that the government of Mexico, and other places that send illegal immigrants and benefit from their remittances, can escape all scrutiny and responsibility for bad conditions in its home country such that people want to leave? Explain to us how a light-skinned Mexican who has spent his life discriminating against darker-skinned people in Mexico as the hacienda lordling can get affirmative action privileges over here, displacing some trailer-raised white kid from a broken home for a university place. Explain to us why the highest-profile DREAMer cases always involve some political science major who claims not to be interested in politics or activism. Or why so many DREAMer activists are well past their mid-20s as they agitate with their NGO buddies and left-wing lawyers. It gets old, given that none of these questions is ever asked. In any case, now we are reading the sob stories and being told to be shocked because young Jessica Colotl is being asked to return to her parents in her native Puebla, Mexico. Apparently, there couldn't be any fate worse than that. Colotl was caught driving without a license a few years ago, lied to the cops about her address, and now expects to be allowed to stay here despite not showing any evidence that she believes in obeying laws or rules. Solely because she wants to. And we, the legal-American community, are being asked to scrap our rule of law-based system in favor of one more like Mexico's, just to accommodate her. Because she wants it. Spare us this rubbish. It's getting so old that it's like an aged tequila.