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Fearful of Canadian border crossing, Phoenix student winners won't compete

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PHOENIX — Students who placed second in a national underwater robotics competition won't be going to next year's contest because of the possibility of their illegal status in the United States.

The students, from Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, recently beat out high school and college students from across the country, including the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and fell only to the reigning champs from the Marine Institute of Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada.

On the heels of their success, the students learned that next year's contest will be held in Canada, and that they won't be going because their coaches won't risk taking students who may be in the country illegally.

Many Carl Hayden students are Hispanic and from poor Phoenix neighborhoods. Schools aren't obligated to ask about residency status or citizenship, and they don't.

Neither Allan Cameron nor Fredi Lajvardi, the teachers who coach Carl Hayden's robotics team, knows which students among the 50 or so members are legal residents.

"Our belief is that every kid can join our club and participate," Cameron said. "We're not going to pick and choose based on something our kids don't have any control over, like their birthplace."

Not willing to risk that a student could be refused re-entry to the United States, Cameron and Lajvardi said, the team won't compete in Canada.

And they have every reason to believe that would happen.

In 2002, four students from Wilson Charter High in Phoenix were detained at the U.S.-Canadian border on a side trip to Niagara Falls while taking part in an international solar-powered boat competition in Buffalo, N.Y.

Their plight raised awareness of children brought into the country illegally by their parents. The smart and articulate teenagers were held up as examples for the federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. Floundering in Congress since its introduction in 2003, it would allow college students who entered the country illegally as children to legalize their status.