IT IS the drowsy after-lunch slot in one of San Antonio’s immigration courts, housed anonymously on the third floor of a squat brown office building, when the case of Pedro Rochas begins. Most of the men who appear before immigration courts tend to favour hardly worn suits with matching shoes, as if going to church. Mr Rochas, a slight 33-year-old, is dressed less smartly in jeans and a red sweatshirt. He came to America at 16 and works as a part-time cook in a retirement home in Cedar Park, a town on the outskirts of Austin, where he met his wife. They have three children, all born in America. The offence that placed Mr Rochas in court on a cold day just before Thanksgiving was the purchase of a Social Security card, which allowed him to get work. He will probably be deported for it.
