PHOENIX (By Daniel González, Arizona Republic) July 22, 2005 -  A federal immigration judge on Thursday tossed out deportation cases against four Phoenix students who are in the United States illegally, saying they were targeted by immigration officials at the Canadian border because they are Hispanic.

U.S. Immigration Judge John Richardson said the government violated the students' constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure and that officials unlawfully obtained evidence against the four.

Immigration experts said the ruling was unusual because proving racial profiling is difficult. It is not expected to have a broad impact because undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country since they were children rarely are subjected to such deportation proceedings.

But the students' worries are not over; all four remain in the country without legal status.

"I'm still in the situation I was in before. I'm just not in deportation proceedings anymore," said Luis Nava, 21.

Linda Spencer Walters, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer, exhorted Richardson during a three-hour hearing Thursday to deport the students or accept their voluntary departure because they are in the country illegally. She said the government will "absolutely" appeal.

Afterward, the students, known as the "Wilson Four," said they were stunned by the judge's decision.

In front of a courtroom packed with media, they hugged and smiled broadly.

"We were going in with little chance of this happening," said Oscar Corona, 20.

Corona and the other three students were brought from Mexico to the United States illegally by their parents when they were children. During the past three years, they have become symbols of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants in the same situation who face dead-end futures because they have no way to legalize their immigration status.

In their testimony, Corona, Nava, Jaime Damian, 20, and Yuliana Huicochea, 20, described how immigration officials began peppering them with questions about their immigration status after their teacher inquired whether they could cross to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls using their high school identification cards.

The four students testified that they never actually crossed into Canada, and three of them - Nava, Corona and Huicochea - were detained while they were still in the visitors center.

The students were part of a group of nine high-achieving students, all Latinos, from Wilson Charter High School in Phoenix who traveled to New York in June 2002 to participate in a prestigious international solar-powered boat competition after placing second in a statewide competition in Tempe earlier that year.

They testified that immigration officials questioned them for nine hours about their legal status, never offered to provide food or water and made several racially offensive comments.

Nava, Huicochea and Corona testified that at one point an immigration supervisor told them that, "In Arizona they may not stick out because there are a lot of Hispanics, but in Buffalo they were eventually going to get questioned."

At another point, the students testified, an immigration officer making dinner plans suggested to another officer that they get "Mexican take-out" and then turned toward the students and laughed.

"I was offended," Nava said. "It was that obvious that they were directing it to us."

School Principal Jane Juliano testified that on the day the students were detained, an immigration official called her in Phoenix and said the four students could be sent to Mexico immediately unless the principal faxed their birth certificates to New York. When the principal said the students were on a field trip and, therefore, should be protected, the immigration officer said, "Don't send your illegals to New York," Juliano said.

Nava, the only one of the four students who was not a minor at the time, testified that he was denied a request to talk to a lawyer four times, and Huicochea testified that she was denied a request to call her mother.

Martin Mahady Jr., supervisory agent for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, testified by phone that he had made no derogatory comments and that he did not believe any other officers had.

Mahady denied the four students were targeted because they looked Hispanic. He said it is routine for agents to inspect people leaving the United States at border crossings.

Kevin Corsaro, a spokesman for the Buffalo office of the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, declined to comment on the ruling Thursday, as did Roger Maier, a Texas-based spokesman.

All the students said they will continue advocating that Congress approve a proposal to give children of undocumented immigrants the chance to become U.S. citizens. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would allow students to apply for legal residency if they entered the United States before they were 16, had lived here for at least five years and had graduated from high school or were enrolled in college.

Despite bipartisan support, the proposal has failed to gain much steam in Congress since it was introduced three years ago.

Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for one of the proposal's chief sponsors, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Durbin and other sponsors intend to reintroduce the bill soon.

Judy Flanagan, a lawyer representing the students, said the appeal process could take up to 18 months.

Meanwhile, the four students said they plan to continue their educations. Nava, who graduated this month with a business degree from Arizona State University, now plans to complete a finance degree he already has started. The other three are community college students.

Corona may have a shot at legal residency because he recently married a U.S. citizen.

An estimated 65,000 undocumented immigrants graduate from U.S. high schools each year, according to the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research group.

Josh Bernstein of the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy organization based in California and Washington, D.C., said it is difficult to prove racial profiling. He said he did not believe the ruling would have much impact on the thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Students who have lived in this country most of their lives rarely undergo deportation proceedings, he said.

Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration reform, said he was not surprised by the judge's decision.

"These kids are a sympathetic bunch, so it's easy to feel for them," he said. "But the law needs to be enforced, otherwise it doesn't mean anything."

Reporters Susan Carroll, Billy House and Mel Meléndez contributed to this article.

Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8312.