Children caught in the immigration crossfire « Thread Started on Oct 8, 2007, 1:29am » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Children caught in the immigration crossfire By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAYread at source> http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... am_N.htmOn the phone, Fiorella Maza comes across as a typical American teenager. Her English is unaccented. Her best friend's name is Brittney. Her three most prized possessions are her wallet, her cellphone and, of course, her iPod. Those were the necessities Maza, 19, took when immigration agents arrived at 6 a.m. on March 1 to deport her and her family. The 2006 South Miami Senior High graduate and her parents now live in her grandmother's house in Lima, Peru — more than 2,600 miles from the place she had called home since she was 2. She's searching for language classes "because my Spanish is really bad," and trying to adjust to life in a land where, she says, "I feel like an outcast." Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants' children could suffer the same fate, according to the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute. They are the lost generation of an underground economy: Brought here illegally by parents, they grew up in American neighborhoods, attended American schools and made American friends. As they approach adulthood, most find that their illegal status is a barrier to jobs and education, and their lack of documentation puts them in line for deportation.