TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Joaquin Luna, an 18 year-old A-student in Texas, committed suicide because he didn’t believe he would be able to become a citizen:

He also followed politics closely, reading in the newspapers about the harsh immigration laws passed in other southern states such as Alabama and Arizona. “He got angry,” Mendoza says. “He said the people passing these laws had no heart: how could they leave so many kids without parents and destroy so many lives?”

When the Dream Act – a law that would have granted undocumented immigrants in higher education such as himself permanent residency status – failed to pass the US senate last year, Luna took it heavily.

“He got depressed real bad,” Mendoza recalls. “Every one of us, we all get depressed. Some of us can handle it, some of us can’t. Joaquin couldn’t.”

When Luna was six months old, his family crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, and as a result, Luna was not an American citizen.

Nothing else needs said.