Ken Sah got a student visa and moved from India to the United States in 1990. Ken applied for asylum the following year. Ken's wife Sarita moved to join him. Their child Kunal was born in 1993. Ken graduated with an engineering degree.

In 1997, the Sah family moved to Green River, Utah, and built a business. They became active in the community. A few years later, Ken was denied asylum. Appeals failed.

On May 31, 2006, Kunal Sah, a seventh-grader, reached the second round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In July, the Sah family had to leave the United States.

Elvira Arellano entered the United States from Mexico in 1997. In December 2002, Elvira was detained at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in an immigration operation modeled on one executed in Salt Lake City a year earlier.

On Aug. 15, 2006, Elvira was supposed to surrender to immigration authorities. Instead, Elvira and her 7-year-old son Saul, a U.S. citizen, sought refuge in a Chicago church.

Elvira still lives at the church to shield herself from deportation. On Nov. 14, Saul asked the Mexican Chamber of Deputies to try to stop his mother's deportation.

In late September, Guillermo Colmenero, a local Latino artist, was detained by immigration agents. Guillermo had lived in the United States for more than 12 years and awaited permanent residence.

Unfortunately for Guillermo, a mark on his criminal record from his teenage years blocked permanent residence and made him ineligible for release from detention.

Last month, Guillermo accepted deportation to Mexico. He hopes an appeal allows him to return.

Millions of similar stories could be told. Some evoke more emotion than others. We wish to be humane. We also wish to respect rules. A "nation of immigrants" wrestles with also being a "nation of laws."

While these cases stir sympathy, strong arguments cut against that feeling in favor of rigorous enforcement of the law. We should take care about bending laws for justice. Government attorneys should have prosecutorial discretion, but they should exercise it only in extraordinarily compelling cases.

Hard cases make bad law. Hard cases also strongly hint at laws that no longer work. The growth in the number of hard immigration cases demands action.

At state, local and personal levels, governments and people despair and consider how to take the law into their own hands. This is understandable; it is also unwise.

While the debate over immigration must be open to diverse voices, a comprehensive solution with consistent application throughout the United States has to be the goal. The solution will not be fair to all people.

Election results and other data suggest that meaningful immigration reform is coming. Federal officials must responsibly close the gap between immigration policy and practice.

With growing international relationships, rapid economic growth and an unemployment rate of 2.5 percent, Utah would benefit from more efficient immigration. State government could better focus on education, health care, the environment, transportation and economic development.

The challenge for our future lies not in constructing greater barriers but in breaking down barriers and achieving more precise and realistic understanding of other people and, ultimately, ourselves.

Law should not bend to resolve hard cases; neither should law harden to resist evolution.

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* MARK C. ALVAREZ is an attorney in Salt Lake City.