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Yves Gomes can breathe easy for the next two years, as he just eluded being deported to India, where he has lived for just 14 months of his entire life.
The 17-year-old was to be deported to India on Friday, however the Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted a last-minute reprieve, reported the Washington Post.
Yves, who his teachers have called as a bright student, can now pursue his higher studies in the University of Maryland, where his application had been stalled.
"I consider myself an American," Yves said, sitting on a coach in his relatives' home in US.
For the last two years, Yves had tried to make the most of his time by taking five Advanced Placement classes in his senior year at Paint Branch High School. He graduated in June with a 3.8 grade-point average.
Yves' deportation has only been deferred by two years, and he could face the same situation later.
However, the Congress' DREAM Act offers a ray of light to illegal immigrants like Yves who were brought to US as infants and are good students today. Under the Act, such students can be considered for citizenship depending on their academic performance.
Examples such as Yves Gomes are among the most attractive cases -- good students who would qualify for the DREAM Act that has been introduced in Congress to offer a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought here as children and who complete high school. About 825,000 such immigrants would gain legal status if the act became law, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Yves is one of the 825,000 illegal immigrants who were brought to the US when they were just infants. Immigrant advocates have contested that illegal immigrants like Yves should not be deported back to their native countries as US is the only country they have known.
However, those who advocate stricter immigration rules contend that Yves' case may become a model for other such cases.
"Obviously, kids in this situation are sympathetic cases," Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter controls told the Post.
"My real concern is that it not become a policy that all people in this position won't be deported because that then creates expectations and that really is a formalised amnesty."
Yves parents were illegal immigrants -- Yves' father was deported back to Bangladesh while his mother Ceclia was sent to India -- who had come to the US with their sons Yves and Aaron on tourist visas in 1994 to meet their relatives.
Yves' younger brother Aaron has got citizenship
Eventually, the family obtained work permits and got jobs in the US. While Aaron became a naturalised citizen as he was born in the country, the rest were asked to leave US in 2006 after their appeal for political asylum was rejected.
In 2008, the couple was deported out of US.
The ICE has been deporting more illegal immigrants now than previous years -- it will deport about 4 lakh illegal immigrants his fiscal year, 25 percent more than in 2007.
Authorities justify that most of them have serious charges against them. According to them, 51 percent of this year's deportees had criminal charges apart from charges related to illegal immigration.
However, immigrant advocates have said that too many non-criminal illegal immigrants too are being included under the tougher enforcement strategies.
Yves has surely been lucky. In 2009, the deportation of just 408 cases had been deferred in contrast to the 387,790 total deportations that year, said Gillian Brigham, public affairs officer.