When he enters the boxing ring, Carlos Luque steps into the spotlight. But he spends the rest of his life in the shadows.
Like so many young people in this country, he's hoping to change that through President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which will grant temporary work permits to young illegal immigrants who were brought here as kids.
Luque, 25, is going for it because he has nothing to lose.
"I basically grew up here since I remember," he told me last week. "I mean sometimes I get flashbacks from when I was 2 years old, 3 years old, but this is my home."
We were standing next to the ring at Boxing Inc. in Marana. You can often find Luque there training for his next fight or teaching boxing.
If you follow the chatter about Deferred Action or the currently stalled DREAM Act, which would grant citizenship to some illegal immigrants who earn college degrees or serve in the military, you have heard a version of Luque's story.
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He came to Tucson with his parents as a small child. He attended our schools and lives in our community. His younger siblings are citizens. So are his three small kids.
He's a Tucsonan, just not a U.S. citizen.
And then there are the details of his other life: The one that doesn't exist because we repeatedly fail on realistic immigration reform.
In this prayed-for other life he would drive legally. He would work at something more than teaching boxing and doing small fights. He would likely attend school and chase his dream of becoming a cop.
In this other life, he would have tried out for Olympic boxing.
Instead, he was ringside with me, hoping Deferred Action will lead to the DREAM Act, which will lead him out of the shadows for good.
"That's the next step, you know?" he said. "At least, I think. That's going to kind of untie our leash a little because that's the way a lot of us feel right now. We have kind of been leashed onto something. I mean, all this time I have been kind of like struggling."
This journey is not without risk. His application is strong, but it could be rejected or lead to deportation.
"It's just a policy shift. And it's a program that he could potentially get a benefit in the form of a work permit. But he doesn't get any legal status, and it could be revoked at any time," Mo Goldman, an immigration attorney representing Luque, told me. "By putting their names out there, they are basically getting themselves placed on a registry, and that could be the potential for deportation down the road."
But by not applying, does he potentially miss out on something he has dreamed of for years?
"There is a fear that if you don't sign up, you may miss out on some opportunity that will be linked to having applied for this Deferred Action," said Lynn Marcus, co-director of the University of Arizona's Immigration Clinic.
Luque weighed these risks and rewards, and made his choice.
"I got a lot of faith in God, so I just leave everything in his hands," he said.
Who knows how long it will take for his application to be processed. A spokeswoman with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told me it's too soon to gauge how many people like Luque are applying for Deferred Action, or how long it will take for those applications to be processed. She thought federal officials would have a better handle on the numbers by mid-September.
If anything, Luque's story reminds us how complicated immigration reform really is. We often talk about immigration with bumper sticker phrases - secure the border first, send them to the back of the line. But catchy election phrases like these are as grounded in reality as Gov. Jan Brewer's move to deny licenses to people who qualify for Deferred Action. She scored political points by keeping uninsured drivers on the road, and making it harder for people to get to work.
"People think there is a line to get into," Marcus said. "People want to blame even children who came here illegally for not having gotten in the line. A. Don't blame the children. B. There hasn't been a line. And C. Do something real. Do something realistic toward the problem."
Luque asks critics to just for a moment stand in his shoes and think about what his deportation means. What it would be like to feel at home in a country you grew up in, and face deportation to a country you don't know?
"Get in my shoes," he said. "What would you do?"
But I would also ask that you think about how much our community loses by holding back Luque's life. He dreams of being a cop, but we've made him a shadow boxer.
Contact Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com
