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Non-sports post. Enter at your peril, avoid at your pleasure.
The two sides to the story of someone possibly entering the US on a marriage fraud, but serving the country in Afghanistan.
I find it so very strange that they would allow him to continue to die for America, almost saying “yeah, you are an immigration criminal, and if you survive, we’ll prosecute, and if you don’t, then thanks for giving us your life”.
Time magazine just posted an article about an Iowa town where ICE (that’s the police arm of immigration) arrested 389 Guatamalens (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) in an Iowa town of 2300.
As someone who has a green card, I am thoroughly disgusted at how some Americans consider immigration a “problem”, and moreso, a problem that requires so much police and law resource to tackle. I mean, really?
The fact of the matter is that almost every single person reading these words, if they were in the position of those people, they would be doing the exact same thing. This is not a question of whether you would do a morally dubious action.
American immigration laws are, in many cases, draconian. And just because America has a wonderful legal system doesn’t mean that everything they enact is a good thing. At one point, not too long ago, women didn’t even have the right to vote. And Blacks were treated as property. And this was the law of the land. That doesn’t make it right.
Politicians give in to fear-mongering, and that’s what the immigration system is all about.
There is a big differnce between immigration and ILLEGAL immigration.
Tom, I am truly glad that you wanted to move to this country, and that you followed all the legal procedures and got your green card. My CEO is from Northern Ireland, my supervisor from Canada, and I have co-workers from Finland, Bosnia, Korea, Jamaica, Colombia & Ecuador. And they all came here legally.
I am in favor of issuing many more resident visas and streamlining the process.
But I can not stand people who want all the privileges without the responsibilties, who believe they are entitled to live here and if there aren’t enough visas for them, that’s too bad they are coming anyway.
We have laws, but these people can’t be bothered with following them.
The US is draconian? I heard an interview with a reporter who profiled a boy who traveled 24,000 miles across Mexico to come to the US to be reunited with his mother. 24,000 miles, because the first 23 times the Mexicans caught him and sent him back to Honduras. Americans and any other foreigners who want to live in Mexico must have a job and a minimum amount in the bank, but the Mexican president says his people have a “human right” to live in the US.
Everyone knows we kiss the Saudi’s butts because they sell us all that oil, but not too many know that until two years ago, Mexico was second onyl two Canada in oil imported into the US. This year they have dropped to fifth, because their socialist government is so inept at running a nationalized oil industry that is now falling apart and whose production is collapsing.
Those are the things that piss me off, people who demand things but don’t want to be bothered following the rules that all the rest of us have to.
Brian, I have to wonder how many of “these people” you interact with on a daily basis. To hear some people talk about illegal immigrants, you’d think they’re dancing in the streets 24 hours a day, pissing on sidewalks and ripping up checks from the government with my name on them. Can’t say I’ve see that too much.
I don’t think many people believe they are entitled to be here. They know they’re breaking the law, but when you consider what you can give your family by breaking the law here, versus what you can give your family by following the law at home, it’s sort of a no-brainer. I’m about as much of an institutionalist as there is, but as Tango correctly surmises, I’d do the exact same thing if I was in their position.
Just because an action is understandable doesn’t mean it should be legal (likewise, if something is irrational it shouldn’t necessarily be illegal). If someone raped or murdered a member of your family and you responded by killing the perpetrator, you could and should be prosecuted even if most other people think they would have done the same. Furthermore, even if it is reasonable to expect people to try to live here illegal, it doesn’t necessarily follow that trying to stop it is unreasonable. That is, if you were to go to another country illegally for work, I don’t think you would expect the authorities in that country to just accept you if you were discovered.
To put it another way, it’s possible to feel sorry for someone and still think they need to follow the law.
#2
The first story you linked to states that he was arrested and going to Atlanta for deportation hearings. That should be a clear indication he is not in Afghanistan in harms way. It seems like the first sentence in the second story is a bit misleading when it says he is currently serving in Afghanistan. They probably meant to say that he was in Afghanistan when he was arrested. However, that second story is dated almost two years after the first so I don’t know how they could have made that mistake.
I would bet that he is not overseas in combat operations, but that Guardian piece muddles things.
Aaron: your rape story doesn’t jibe, because it is not reasonable (though possible) to see a situation where the law could change to allow “honor killings”.
It is reasonable for Black people to be treated like human beings, and law be damned. If it means breaking the law for Blacks to be given human rights, so be it. What about laws that allow internment camps?
Immigration laws have not always been this way. It is reasonable to have immigration laws be changed so that human trafficking would not be so prevalent. If people feel that they need to come into this country to escape their horrible conditions by going through even more horrible conditions to finally settle into a land of opportunity, who are we perched high above to cast judgement?
Murder is morally wrong. Immigration is subject to the whims of the politicians who bend over to the fear mongerers.
Do I come in daily contact? I am close personal friends with many immigrants, but not with any illegals. I do see and interact with illegals on an almost daily basis, but none that I have ever sat down and had a conversation with.
I lived for 10 years in Prince William Co, Va. Last year they allowed their police to detain and turn over to immigration those who where stopped for traffic violations and didn’t have any ID. If I am stopped, and don’t have a license, I am goign to jail, but the community eladers were on TV talkign about their rights being abused. I have seen this type of thing frequently in the DC area over the years.
I do think that we need to make it easier to be legal, and hell to be illegal. We should allow more people into the legally, and make the proscess easier so that there is less of an incentive to bypass the law.
If we say that it’s ok when people break the law, any law, then why have it in the first place? It would encourage an attitude that your personal circumstance, getting what you want, is more important than respecting the law. Every country in the world has laws controlloing their borders, and most are enforced more strictly than the US.
I do not respect the socialist government of Mexico, who instead of developing the riches of that country, have made it instead someplace where people flee. A country that doesn’t tolerate anyone coming in, but which publicly states that their citizens have a human right to be in the US (where they can send money back home). If the government of Mexico decided to be more like the US, they wouldn’t be driving as many of their people out. (I did favor NAFTA as a way of improving Mexico). And it’s not just Mexico, where I lived was a hot bed of Salvadoran MS-13 gang activity.
I’m sure some illegal emigration or immigration laws were broken when ballplayers come here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/590/story/562497.html
And there is an unending list of lawyers and judges that hire undocumented workers. They do this because they don’t think it’s a big deal.
"your rape story doesn’t jibe, because it is not reasonable (though possible) to see a situation where the law could change to allow “honor killings”.”
I don’t understand this response. The scenario I described is nothing like what I understand “honor killings” to be. Is there another usage that I’m not familiar with?
“It is reasonable for Black people to be treated like human beings, and law be damned. If it means breaking the law for Blacks to be given human rights, so be it. What about laws that allow internment camps?”
I wasn’t arguing that all laws are inherently reasonable. I was arguing the opposite, that what may seem reasonable should not necessarily be legal. I also vehemently object to the comparison of blacks who were born and raised in this country being denied basic rights with the deportation of people who illegally entered this country. The former should absolutely expect to have the same rights and privileges as others born and raised here, while the latter should not. If it was our governments official policy to keep illegals here but use them for forced labor or something like that, then your comparison might have some legitimacy. But simply making them go back to where they came from is not a deeply immoral act, unless they were fleeing persecution and would have their rights violated upon return.
It seems to me unquestionable that one of the basic duties of any government of any country anywhere on the planet is to control who enters their territory if for no other reason than security purposes. I can not imagine how any one can have a problem with that. And if it is accepted that a nation has the right to control who crosses their border, then the real issue is a matter numbers: how many people can enter for what reasons, with what skills, etc. If you or anyone else wants to argue that more legal immigrants should be allowed, that’s fine so long as you provide numbers and give substantial justification for those numbers. If, on the other hand, the argument is that the US is committing a grievous crime against humanity when it does what every other sovereign nation on Earth considers routine, I think that’s utter nonsense.
The US, or any other Western nation, can not absorb all the poor people who wish to come here. It is an absolute impossibility, so we have to draw the line somewhere. Yes, that means that millions and billions of desperately impoverished people will not be given a chance to have a better life here, but we have no choice.
Aaron & Brian, I’m in agreement that if you’re here illegally, and caught, you should face whatever penalty the law suggests.
My problem is that you (Brian) seem to ascribe to the same belief that a lot of people in the US do - that illegal immigrants are out to get you. That somehow they’re cackling with glee when you’re not looking because they’re not paying taxes, or sending their kids to public schools, or whatever else they’re “taking” from you.
You can’t assume communities are all in agreement with their “community leaders”. Al Sharpton doesn’t speak for black people, and Bill O’Reilly doesn’t speak for conservatives. They’re just the guys who talk the loudest, and they take extreme positions so people will listen to them. I guess my point about who you interact with was that if you (or anyone) did interact with illegal immigrants with any frequency, you’d realize that their beliefs are probably more similar to yours than they are to their “community leaders”.
And for what it’s worth, I think we could quite easily absorb anyone and everyone who wants to come here. We can’t do that and keep our LCD TVs, our SUVs, and our summer homes, but we sure as hell can feed and shelter everyone on this planet with the daily income of the population of the US.
"And for what it’s worth, I think we could quite easily absorb anyone and everyone who wants to come here. We can’t do that and keep our LCD TVs, our SUVs, and our summer homes, but we sure as hell can feed and shelter everyone on this planet with the daily income of the population of the US.”
If it were merely a matter of punching the total wealth of the US into a calculator and dividing by the population of the Earth, then maybe this is true. But in real life, it would be impossible. If hundreds of millions or billions of poor, uneducated people with widely different languages, cultures, religions, etc. came here our economy, institutions, infrastructure and so on would be overwhelmed and there would be total chaos. Their lives would be no better than before while the living standards of the people already here would plummet.
The current illegals are not causing a problem. They are likely a net positive. Sure, at some point, if you open the door too wide, too fast, you get a problem. But, we are far away from that.
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I don’t object to my comparison of blacks.
How about deporting kids who come here against their will (say as babies), but have built a life here and are now 16 yrs old. Too bad for them?
Until you have a relative or friend in this position, and you suffer along with them, this is simply an academic exercise for those. I’d like to hear from people who have or had been in contact with illegals on a personal level, and would never think of turning them in. Or, have turned them in. If they are criminals and broke the law, I’d like to know that you actually did your “civic” duty.
Otherwise, this is just like Tom Glavine talking about PEDs.
How about women who get married to American men, but those men did not sponsor their women? And they use the threat of non-sponsorship in order to get them to comply and be subservient? According to imm law, those women don’t qualify under the Violence Against Women provision, because they didn’t get sponsored first. So, these women risk getting deported. Now, by luck, some women did get their green card under the violence provision, even though technically they shouldn’t.
This is just a tip of the iceberg. There are so many holes in imm law, it’s not even funny.
Any system designed where there is too much uncontrolled power in too few hands, with boilerplate language that is simply too strict to allow case-by-case interpretation is bound to have serious problems.
The people breaking imm “law” are some of the most law-abiding people around. They are exactly like you and me. Except they have desperate conditions they want to get out of. They *will* enter, there’s nothing you can do to stop them. Unless you setup a reasonable system to bring them in and document them, this will always happen.
Just as opening the door too wide too fast is a problem, so is keeping the door closed too tightly, too long.
Cuban ballplayers, including Betancourt:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/07/cuban_baseball200807?printable=true¤tPage=all
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I’d also recommend watching the movie Bread and Roses (Adrian Brody is a supporting actor). Watch the monologue by Rosa, about a 80-90 minutes into the movie, to Maya. (Bonus: if you hate George Lopez, he’s in this movie, and you will get to hate him even more.)
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Having a gated community to control your utopia doesn’t work. If it was illegal to harbor Muslims in a time of war, would you do it? What about if you were German in the 1940s and you were harboring Jews, against the law?
There are gray areas to immigration law (which is made black/white when it is directed at a gender/racial/ethnic/age basis). While America (today) is obviously not at the extreme of where it could end up, this is not a black/white issue. There are human consequences to treating immigration as if it is a right/wrong issue, the way we would treat murder or other terrible crimes. Human smugglers is the byproduct.
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Read the link, watch the movie, and then come back here.
As usual, the details about the marriage make little sense in the articles, and we don’t have enough information (and even if we did, who knows what is true or not) to have an opinion one way or the other. At least I don’t.
While I don’t think that being in the military should give you immunity from everything immigration related, certainly it should be taken into consideration (like everything else actually), which it sounds like it might.
Whether Arab-Americans are discriminated against in immigration matters or not, I would have little doubt that they are. I think that the default position of many people, including government officials and agencies, is that an Arab American, especially one who is not a U.S. resident or citizen, is a potential terrorist until proven otherwise.