Two things stick out to me in the article below. First, there are two major fallacies here, first an appeal to pity on the part of the young lady (which I share, but it gets us off of the topic) and an ad hominem attack against Congress (which again may be right but it gets us off of the topic, people who are in our country illegally)
.
Second, I don't ever see the US deporting people who, though they came here illegally, have lived an upright life. All I want (and I'm sure many others) are those who use the system and commit the crimes (whether that be 1 or 10 million) be punished and returned.

Diana Villanueva-Hoeckley did not take the typical path to Westmont College, a Christian liberal arts college in Montecito, California. The 19-year-old sophomore was born in Guatemala, and then smuggled into the United States at the age of 7. Her story makes you want to cry. What the U.S. Congress may do to her makes you want to scream.

Diana's mother came to the United States legally in the mid-1990s. Once she had established some semblance of a life for herself in the Los Angeles area, she tried to obtain a visa for her daughter to come and live with her. The U.S. Embassy turned down her application. Desperate to have her daughter by her side, she paid a "coyote," or migrant smuggler, to deliver Diana to California.

Imagine the fright of being told at age 7 that you must take a long, covert journey with a stranger, all alone. Diana today can only recall snippets: a bus journey, a short plane ride, hanging out at borders waiting for the right moment to cross. "I just kept focused on how great it would be together with my mother again," says Diana.

Not long after her arrival into the U.S., Diana and her now-pregnant mother moved to Santa Barbara. Diana's sister, Estrellita, was born. Earning a meager income from a string of housecleaning jobs, her mother moved the family into a small trailer. Diana attended public schools in the Santa Barbara area starting in the third grade.

During her freshman year in high school, Diana took note that her mother was not looking well. Lacking health insurance, her mother visited a health clinic serving a low-income population. At first she was diagnosed with pneumonia, but slowly it became apparent that something much more serious was going on. She had lung cancer, and died within two years.
Chris Hoeckley and Cheri Larsen Hoeckley are both professors at Westmont College. Their daughter, Mackenzie, was Estrellita's classmate at the local public school. Many there were heartbroken by Diana and Estrellita's loss. The Hoeckleys reached out and embraced the girls into their family.

The Hoeckleys had for some time looked to adoption as an avenue for growing their family. Their desire to parent matched their religious conviction that God calls us to care for the orphans in need. They went through the county process to legally adopt the Villanueva children. In the midst of much tragedy, the Hoeckleys, now 5 in number, patched together a loving connection.

If only the story could move on from there to focus on the life experiences that all families look to create. But most families do not face criminal prosecution. Yet, Diana may one day soon be charged as a felon for illegally immigrating to this country 13 years ago. And her adoptive parents also could be criminally charged for aiding and abetting an illegal immigrant.