If true history were taught in public school, many people would change their minds in how they view immigration. I am a Native American Indian.  I went to school on a reservation, and in regular public schools.  Only on the reservation did we even learn of how the "illegal immigrant white people from England" had come here and "civilized our country"  all the while murdering our men, raping our women, and mutilating our children. But never the less, teaching us the true way to live as Christians.  Now we are the aliens of our own country.  Don't get me wrong, the past is the past, and I am a Christian, but how Christopher Columbus "discovered America" and this land was colonized was no greater an achievement in my book than planting a flag and moving in my back yard.  My husband is from Mexico and we are waiting for him to become a citizen as well.  But even if this so called nation has forgotten I still remember and I know that God is in control.  I'm hopeful for change, and I'm excited that our president is the son of an immigrant.  Amnesty is OK for me there are more important things than money and the white man drew the border anyway!  Ha ha!  I love everyone, but I pray for all of you in the same type circumstances as me and my husband.  Remember, God hears and answers prayers!!!! 

"White people from England", huh? I didn't realize  Cristóbal Colón (aka Christopher Columbus) was an Englishman?

The word 'alien' is all over the text of the DREAM Act.

"After 21 years," you neglected to say.  Or "never" if the parent entered across the border.

21 years.  Small detail.

"protection from deportation" I neglected to say.  After 21 years, the child can sponsor the mom, but the protection from deportation -  that's immediate.  But you tell me, dave.

Or then you have the Hamdi delimna.  A person born of Saudi temporary worker, yet raised in the Middle East.  Talk about a 'sleeper cell'.  And how do you try such a person?  Do you afford him the rights of an American citizen?  Does his crime then become treason?

Better to not even go there.  Better to join with all the  other modern liberal democracies and modify our citizenship by birth policy.

"After 21 years, the child can sponsor the mom, but the protection from deportation -  that's immediate"

Wrong again.  No protection from deportation--none--until the parent has lived 10 years in the U.S., and then protection in the form of "cancellation of removal" only in cases of "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" to the child or another US citizen or LPR immediate family member (not simply "normal" hardship that would result from deportation), granted in a minority of cases in the discretion of the judge.

And I'm guessing from your Hamdi example that you would have supported Japanese-American internment--first and second-generation potentially 'treasonous' immigrants in time of war ... let me guess, you were on the waiting list for Malkin's book ...

I don't know where Christopher Columbus was from and quite frankly I don't care.  All I know is that when his boat ran aground by accident and he thought he was in India, he was definately an alien to the natives already here.  And besides, this nation was formed by greed.  If there hadn't been and "gold in them thar hills" no one would be here. Do you know why there are two Cherokee reservations?  Do you know why one is in NC and one is in OK?   It's because of a historical event called the trail of tears.  It was ordered by the "government" that a state could not be errected within a state, thus the Indian people were forced to walk from NC to OK, burying their dead along the way.  So was this constituonal? In my book, seperating families is nothing less.  Yes, I understand that there are some who use the system to their advantage, but what about the people who just want to live happily with their families in peace without the worry that they might be in jail before they make it home for dinner?
I personally think it is alot of racism.  Especially for Mexican people.  They are our closest relative.  Long ago there was no border.   Can you believe that someone had the odasity to ask my mother if she had papers?  She's full Cherokee!  So I guess we will be OK as long as we stay on the reservation where my husband wont stick out.  I guess I know how it must have felt during the holocaust.

I would be interesting to do a DNA analysis between the Cherokee tribe and the Mayan and Aztec tribes.  Off hand, they would comes across as very different groups: the Mayan-Aztecs as a tropical people, and the Cherokee from a temperate climate, and dense forest environment.  it's almost like comparing the Germans and the Egyptians.

We all need to show our 'papers' at many times in our lives and every April 15th, I can't understand why this would be offensive to your mother?  Please explain.

"he was definately an alien to the natives already here.  And besides, this nation was formed by greed.  If there hadn't been and "gold in them thar hills" no one would be here."

Yeah, um....just a little FYI. Columbus didn't land in North America.

Indians are not the original inhabitants of the Americas.

And as for the gold...cotton, tobacco, spice, lumber, and rum were here LONG before the gold rush.

"I guess I still want to know if deporting a mother with a US-born child under 10 years old, is a violation of the family unification principal?"

It's not the age of the child but the length of time the parent has spent in the U.S.  As far as a 'family unification principle,' it is recognized under international human rights law but alone provides no defense against deportation in the U.S.  In short, there is no "family unification principle" as such recognized under U.S. immigration law in removal proceedings. 

Perhaps I was intemperate in accusing you of supporting internment.  The principles though between Hamdi and WWII internment are similar--once you break the link between soil and citizenship, you call into question the status of every second-generation immigrant, then their kids, too, and so on and so on.  Where does it stop?  The U.S. doesn't have the kind of long national/cultural history that France, Italy, Germany, etc. had--one great source of national pride for the U.S. is the idea of nationhood based on ideals rather than ethnic/cultural group.  I think to a large extent it's a pseudo history, but I do think it's a better model than the European one.  But exactly because Americans cling so tightly to the idea of a universalist U.S., they will never get rid of jus soli citizenship.

But it doesn't sound like you have much of a problem with internment after all.  Might I suggest that if your parents/grandparents had been in the camps, you'd feel differently.  Just as a thought exercise. 

"We don't know whether or not Japanese internment was a bad or a good strategy."

We know it was a morally flawed strategy that resulted in U.S. citizens being locked up by the government for no reason other than their ethnicity.  Most Americans think that's wrong.  Here's Malkin's book, which I can't help but think she'll regret writing someday, if she doesn't already. http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Internment-Round-Up-Americas-Terror/dp/0895260514
What's next, "In Defense of Auschwitz" ... "In Defense of Slavery"?  

"We do know, however, that the US won the war and the victors do write the history books."

This assumes that the Japanese-Americans who were interned were not part of the victorious side--i.e. that they were not Americans.  Even the ones with kids in the U.S. military at the time.  So what were they? 

Wow, there's a lot of stuff here.  I can only respond selectively.
Your ideas about nationhood are interesting, in that somehow the US is different.  I don't think the US is any different.  One has to define what nationhood is. I believe it is common language, common history, and common culture.  As far as age, consider the US has had one constitution lasting 230 years, while France, for example, has had 5 constitutions during the same period.  Which is the older nation?
I want to comment on this "jus soli" citizenship.  Now this was included as a provision of the 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, without the participation of the southern states - because when they had included the souther states it failed.  Now, in those 140 years, don't you think there were certain groups of people who were not unconditionally and automatically granted American citizenship based on birth?  Certain people of Chinese extraction, perhaps.  There were definitely 2 groups of people who were traditionally  denied unconditional and automatic jus soli citizenship.  If you don't know who they are, I will be happy to tell you.  And the wording of the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment does not necessarily impart unconditional and automatic jus soli citizenship, even though the current interpretation seems to lean that way.  I believe the interpretation should change to be more in line with that of other modern liberal democracies.  I do not believe this requires a constitutional amendment.
True, my parents and grandparents were not in camps, but other relatives and ancestors of mine were.  Relatives and ancestors of mine suffered horribly for their culture, for their religion, for their nationality.  Yours?