My mom crossed the border illegally 22 years ago. She was waiting to give birth in a hospital in Mexico when her sister picked her up and smuggled her across the border. My mom made it 30 minutes north of there, in the midst of birth pains, to a small town by the flat Southern Californian lands. I was born there. I, a U.S. high school valedictorian and member of the MIT Class of 2014, was born there in California. But our home was in Mexico.