America Has A New Hero, And He’s Undocumented

This is a major disruption.

Just when you thought you had the immigration issue sorted, boxed, wrapped and tidy, an undocumented worker does something heroic. Now we have to re-sort everything.

It happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Albuquerque Journal reports:

Antonio Diaz Chacon fearlessly chased down an accused kidnapper and rescued a 6-year-old girl. His actions drew national attention, not just to his heroism, but to his status as an illegal immigrant.

Apparently Diaz Chacon, 24, who’s from somewhere in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, was driving his pick-up with his wife at his side when he saw a man abduct a little girl and toss her into a van. So he chased the van while his wife called 911. The happy ending was that the alleged kidnapper was caught – he drove the van into a tree when he saw he was being chased – the girl was rescued and the city of Albuquerque has a new hero to celebrate.

It was all over the news: TV, print, radio, internet, more than 1000 stories written, published and read. The Mayor of Albuquerque proclaimed Antonio Diaz Chacon day and gave him a plaque to commemorate the event. He got his picture made with the Chief of Police and everybody wants to shake his hand.

The fact that he’s undocumented is suddenly unimportant.

See, this story doesn’t fit the tired narrative. How can someone so illegal be so heroic? How can you celebrate an un-American man for doing something good while he’s here taking a job form a U.S. citizen, making anchor babies, not paying taxes and mooching off social services?

At what  point is our hero going to be deported? It’s not like the authorities didn’t know where to find him. Where was he going to go? Why didn’t the police chief cuff him as he shook his hand?

Our Albuquerque hero added a layer to the immigration debate that makes the undocumented look (shall I say it?) more human. Now we have to  include the possibility of heroism in our discussion. Every time an undocumented worker is detained, corralled and deported we now have to consider if we’re deporting a potential hero  – any one of the people our nation kicks out of the country can catch a baby thrown from the window of a burning building.

It was so much easier before. The undocumented were criminals, and that was that. Now we have to consider that they’re people and do things that normal people do, like selflessly save little girls at the risk of being detained, jailed and separated from their family.

What part of illegal do I not understand? The part where it saves a life.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda