Fate of Former Arizona Detective Carmen Figueroa Depends on Immigration 'Discretion'

"Carmen Figueroa was a good Arizona Department of Public Safety officer for 10 years, but now faces the possibility of deportation to Mexico.  Whether she actually gets deported, though, depends.  Will the system view her as a foreigner who infiltrated not just the state police but the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, where she previously worked?  Or will it view her as a woman who deserves a break because, in the words of DPS spokesman Bart Graves, she was an “above average” officer who put her life on the line as a narcotics investigator?  Figueroa’s case illustrates a key problem with our current system of dealing with people living illegally in the United States.  How you’re treated depends not so much on the laws as how you work the system, and how the immigration bureaucrats use their judgment. ... Figueroa must now persuade federal bureaucrats to use discretion in her favor.  It would be better if the obvious conclusion — that Figueroa should stay — were spelled out clearly in law." - Tim Steller, Dec. 15, 2013.