The follow up of a good samaritan who's saved a kid life. He was deported to Mexico without even getting an address for the boy's family to write a thank-you card.

Christopher Buchleitner, 9, Orphan, Reunited With His Dogs
Border Crosser Who Saved His Life -- Sent Back To Mexico

Thanksgiving night, nine-year old Christopher Buchleitner and his mother were driving home from a camping trip at Peña Blanca Lake near the Mexican border, 60 miles from Tucson.

And then everything went wrong...

Young Chris' father, Jack, had committed suicide several months previously on Labor Day. His mother, Dawn Alice Tomoko, lost control of their car, and went over a cliff. They landed 300 feet from the road. While mom was alive, she was trapped and dying. Christopher wiggled out of the car and started walking away -- in the cold desert night, all alone, down at the base of a cliff. Age nine.

Enter, stage left, a border crosser, Jesus Manual Cordova, 26. He was wandering through the desert. He came upon the boy. Together they returned to the car, comforted the dying mother whom they could not free, built a fire for warmth, and in the morning when hunters came upon them, the young boy and the young border crosser were both alive, as were the boy's dogs -- a golden retriever and a Queensland heeler.

The boy was dusted off to University Hospital in Tucson. The young man was taken by the Border Patrol to Nogales and let go -- on the Mexican side of the border.

If being a citizen is fundamentally the willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of your community, Jesus Manual Cordova has met the test. Instead of continuing through the desert to freedom, he stopped and rendered aid, knowing the cost.

Any sane society would welcome this young man with open arms, the keys to the city, a full-ride to the University of Arizona, and a passport. The Republican-run Border Patrol shoved his brown-skinned ass right back over the border without even getting an address for the boy's family to write a thank-you card.

The boy is out of the hospital and has his beloved dogs back. He is currently with his uncle's family; whatever happens, he'll be with family we're told, and his dogs will stay with him.

Of Jesus Manual Cordova, there is no sign.

He has vanished into Mexico.

Or hopefully, walked back through the desert again, to a better life.

One final note... the young boy and the young man: they have the same birthday. Make of it what you will. Certainly, the border crosser made it possible that night for the boy to someday, many birthdays from now, become a man.

A man hopefully, as much a man as Jesus Manual Cordova

Debate is probably the wrong term. It's more of a no-win shouting match where few ideas can be heard over the hate, misinformation and stereotypes spewing from extremists on both sides.

On one side is a growing, angry America, gathering steam as the 2008 presidential election fast approaches. This side, prompted by the mainstream media of talk radio and cable television hosts, believes all undocumented immigrants are like Yanez-Burruel — dangerous criminals.

The other side is less visible but vocal. This side doesn't have as large a media megaphone and supporting cast of elected officials, but it manages to get its message into the debate. It includes immigration-rights groups, some churches and human-rights groups who view all undocumented immigrants as honorable like Cordova. They fail, however, to acknowledge that some undocumented immigrants commit violent criminal acts.
Not all undocumented immigrants are not criminals.
That's a major obstacle, if not the biggest, in reaching a national consensus on a practical immigration plan. The debate about illegal immigration is too often made in absolute terms.
Anti-illegal-immigration restrictionists want the federal government to wall off the border. Defenders of undocumented immigrants will not support increased border security.
Illegal immigration is not black or white. It's a morass of gray, interconnecting interests, involving international and national economics, international migration of people and, of course, politics
At the pinnacle is longshot Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, a Colorado congressman. Betting that crass xenophobia garners votes, Tancredo is running TV ads in Iowa that link undocumented immigrants with Islamic terrorists
The truth is that undocumented immigrants encompass individuals like Cordova?
Unfortunately, pandering politicians are up to the same old tricks: Scare the voters.