NEW YORK AP – A Mexican immigrant who passed the New York bar exam last year cannot work as a lawyer because he was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, and his situation could soon become part of a national debate.

Cesar Vargas was 5 years old when he arrived from Puebla, Mexico, with his mother in 1990. He’s now a 28-year-old City University of New York law graduate and said he is waiting to see how courts in California and Florida decide two similar cases involving Mexican immigrants.