[Rasklad]

Out of curiosity, if you receive stolen property should you be allowed to keep it? I mean, you didn't really do anything wrong. You just bought a watch from someone that you figured you could trust. It's a bummer that some guy got the watch stolen in the first place but hey, it's not your problem. Right?

Although that was addressed to MeadHallPirate, here's my take on that. I'd be more receptive to the analogy if the US hadn't pretty much led them into the situation and/or given it to them by its conduct and misconduct already for which they now wish to pull the rug out from under them. That's the key difference to me. Using legal analogies, it's more a case concerning the people at issue of these kinds of legal applications:

Unclean hands doctrine:

Unclean hands, sometimes clean hands doctrine or dirty hands doctrine is an equitable defense in which the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy on account of the fact that the plaintiff is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with respect to the subject of the complaint—that is, with "unclean hands". The defendant has the burden of proof to show the plaintiff is not acting in good faith. The doctrine is often stated as "those seeking equity must do equity" or "equity must come with clean hands". Unclean hands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Connivance defence:

A legal finding of connivance may be made when an accuser has assisted in the act about which they are complaining. In some legal jurisdictions, and for certain behaviors, it may prevent the accuser from prevailing.

For example, if someone were to entice their spouse to commit adultery, they might be blocked (or estopped) from divorcing their spouse on grounds of that adultery. See Sargent v. Sargent, Court of Chancery of New Jersey, 1920 (Held a man who had not taken active steps to prevent his wife's adultery was not entitled to divorce because he was a participator and consenter to her adultery).

Connivance is the act of conniving or conspiring, especially with the knowledge of and active or passive consent to wrongdoing or a twist in truth, to make something appear as something that it is not. Connivance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Laches defence:

Laches (pronounced /ˈlætʃɨz/) (f. French, lâchesse, lâches) is an equitable defense, or doctrine. The person invoking laches is asserting that an opposing party has "slept on its rights," and that, as a result of this delay, that other party is no longer entitled to its original claim. Put another way, failure to assert one’s rights in a timely manner can result in a claim's being barred by laches. Laches is a form of estoppel for delay. In Latin, "Vigilantibus non dormientibus æquitas subvenit." "Equity aids the vigilant, not the sleeping ones" (that is, those who sleep on their rights). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)

Entrapment, etc.

If we were talking about a situation going forward with reforms that drew a firm 'zero tolerance' line against further illegal immigration with genuine enforcement, it would make sense to me and that's how it should be going forward.

The current bill, however, does not apply to any new children; it only applies to people brought here as children already here for more than 5 years already. Did the US take appropriate steps to remove these children? No, not at all.

In fact, they've been required to abide by the US school attendance laws. Did the ICE and former INS take steps to remove these children from the schools over the past years along with their parents or whoever else brought them here? No. The US government could have done a number of things to remove them but never did. And neither did the states and their local subsidiaries where they have long been authorised to enter into the 287(g) federal programme for enforcing immigration laws. Even states like AZ who are passing their own laws right now only just got started...they slept on the issue for the past two decades when the ball got rolling on large numbers of illegal residents now here.

The reasons why the illegal immigration situation exploded to where it is now concern very shady reasons of labour exploitation practices as well as completely negligent if not reckless defaults where not intentional. Unlike nations that have taken immigration and border security seriously, the US played a key role in 'winking and nodding' illegal immigrants into the nation and then allowing them to remain. Only now that it has crested into a ridiculous situation are there calls for crackdowns...more than a little too late and an insincere retroactive reaction to prior misconduct and negligence that caused it.

For the children at issue, they are innocent parties in this whole affair whilst their parents and, to the most faulting degree IMO, the American government by having allowed this situation to become what it has rather than having done what they should have been entrusted to do, namely provide and enforce an honest, sensible and effective immigration and border policy. The American public also bears fault for either not pressing the issue in a timely fashion and/or tolerating or desiring it for the ugly aims it got from it insofar as cheap labour and its benefits. After all, this is a democratic republic and the voters bear accountability for the actions of the people they elect as their representatives.

Given how long these minors now turned adults were allowed to vest themselves here where they are now Americans except in paperwork, it's acting in bad faith and dealings IMO to not hold its own conduct to account in creating the situation for which these children now turned adults are now in limbo. The act sets that right by acknowledging that the US let them vest and become American products, and even gets plenty back from them in addition such as military service and high level education for a productive presence as Americans.