In the movie Across the Universe, protagonist Jude left his hometown of Liverpool, and upon arriving in the United States, he jumped ship and became an illegal immigrant. A lot of stuff happens, and towards the end of the film, Jude is caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is arrested when he’s in a riot.
His American father comes and bails him out of jail, but he tells Jude that because he’s an illegal immigrant in this situation, he’s going to be deported.
Jude returns to Liverpool, finds that his old girlfriend got knocked up by that guy ("why’d it have to be him?") and that there’s really nothing there in Liverpool for himself anymore.
So he goes back to the United States, and this time gets the legal right to stay there. He finds the girl he’d fallen in love with in America, and the movie ends on a hopeful note, suggesting that they might get back together.
I’m curious as to how realistic it is that Jude was able to get legal permission to stay in the U.S. so quickly after being deported. I looked up current law on Google, which seems to indicate that it would have taken him, at minimum, five years, and maybe up to 15 years, to be able to return. But he was probably back in America in less than a week’s time.
Of course, the movie takes place in the 1960s.