Roberto Martinez is the former director of the U.S./Mexico Border Program. A lifelong Chicano activist, he has spent 30 years monitoring human rights in the San Diego/Tijuana area. In 1992, he was honored as an Intermational Human Rights Monitor by Human Rights Watch, the first U.S. citizen to be honored in such a way.The following essay, published here as a call for a humane U.S. immigration policy, was written as the introduction for the American Friends Service Committee 2003 human rights report.