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Immigration raids split families
By MONICA RHOR, Associated Press Writer 55 minutes ago
They are the hidden side of the government's stepped-up efforts to track down and deport illegal immigrants: Toddlers stranded at day care centers or handed over to ill-equipped relatives. Siblings suddenly left in charge of younger brothers and sisters.
When illegal-immigrant parents are swept up in raids on homes and workplaces, the children are sometimes left behind a complication that underscores the difficulty in enforcing immigration laws against people who have put down roots and begun raising families in the U.S.
Three million American-born children have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant; one in 10 American families has mixed immigration status, meaning at least one member is an immigrant here illegally, according to the Pew Center for Hispanic Research and the office of U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (news, bio, voting record). Children born in the U.S. are automatically American citizens and are not subject to deportation.
This past week in Massachusetts, most of the 361 workers picked up in a raid at a New Bedford leather-goods factory that made vests and backpacks for the U.S. military were women with children, setting off what Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick called a "humanitarian crisis."
Community activists scrambled to locate the children, offer infant-care tips to fathers unfamiliar with warming formula and changing diapers, and gather donations of baby supplies. One baby who was breast-feeding had to be hospitalized for dehydration because her mother remained in detention, authorities said.
Child-care arrangements had to be made for at least 35 youngsters.
Officials of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division released at least 60 of the workers who were sole caregivers to children, but more than 200 were sent to detention centers in Texas and New Mexico....
Who's job is this to figure out beforehand?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_on_re_us/divided_families
agree.
Children suffer the consequences of their parents decisions evey day. This isn't any different.
Does that mean we allow them to be hurt? I'm not sure what the right answer is, btw. But I think compassion should enter into our decision-making. Don't you?
What it doesn't mean is that we allow ourselves to be hamstrung in enforcing our laws due to the consequences caused by the lawbreakers to begin with.
My idea of compassion is deport the children with the parents. No reason to separate them, IMO.
And if the children are born here and are citizens? You can't deport a citizen.
If the children are born here -- which is a scam all unto itself, but a separate topic -- the parents are allowed in as guest workers/guardians (not sure what the official term is); which, would preclude them being illegal.
A scam? We used to understand that people came here for a better life. Every group complains about the group that came after them. But I've never seen any history indicating that anti-immigrant feeling was ever at anything near the level it is at now. I have to wonder what the reason for that is. And I can't imagine it's because they don't speak English or they allegedly engage in crimes. Let's face it, if one is a first or second generation immigrant, then the folk who came here didn't speak English. People who spoke the same language huddled together in ghettos, barrios, hoods...whatever you want to call them. And each immigrant group comes here and a percentage engage in criminal activity. That's why we had Irish mobs; Jewish mobs; Italian mobs... now we have other things. But I don't think if one scales it out that it's really very different.
they are criminals...they broke the law.....
broke the law or tried to get a better life? And is it any different than any group before?
they broke the law...they should be deported....those here legally can stay
I have mixed feelings on this subject. It seems to me that there are times that people are so desperate to make a better life that they don't wait for, or can't access, for whatever reason, a legal means of coming here.
As I said in my initial post. I don't know what the answer is. I really don't. But I don't think losing compassion is it.
I have mixed feelings on this subject. It seems to me that there are times that people are so desperate to make a better life that they don't wait for, or can't access, for whatever reason, a legal means of coming here.
As I said in my initial post. I don't know what the answer is. I really don't. But I don't think losing compassion is it.
i will try this defense when i start robbing banks....
And if the children are born here and are citizens? You can't deport a citizen.
And if the children are born here and are citizens? You can't deport a citizen.
Church Is Sanctuary As Deportation Nears
Immigrant Activist Defies U.S. Order
By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A10
CHICAGO, Aug. 16 -- A 31-year-old illegal immigrant who has become a spokeswoman for undocumented workers is defying a deportation order and has taken sanctuary in a church on this city's West Side.
Elvira Arellano refused to comply with the order directing her to return to her native Mexico on Tuesday. She is camped out in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.
The church's storefront and pulpit are plastered with signs declaring it a holy sanctuary, invoking the sanctuary movement of the 1980s in which churches sheltered undocumented refugees from civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala.
"This is the house of God," Arellano said Wednesday. "What man would enter the house of God to arrest me?"
In 2002, Arellano was arrested during sweeps at O'Hare International Airport, where, using a false Social Security number, she had gotten a job cleaning planes. She was ordered deported but obtained an extension to stay to care for her American-born son, Saul. Now 7, he suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and other health problems. The extension was granted because of private bills introduced by Sen. Richard L. Durbin and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, both Illinois Democrats.
Arellano has since become a vocal leader of the burgeoning immigrant rights movement. She has visited Washington to lobby lawmakers, and she spoke with Mexican President Vicente Fox during a Chicago area visit in 2004. She founded an organization of undocumented parents with U.S. citizen children, marched with thousands in Chicago and Boston, and recently participated in a 24-day hunger strike to oppose deportations.
Her extension was denied this year by the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"ICE is required to enforce the nation's laws fairly without any regard for a person's ability to generate publicity and support," said Gail Montenegro, ICE spokeswoman in Chicago.
Montenegro would not say whether agents will go to the church.
"ICE has the authority to arrest anyone in violation of immigration law anywhere in the U.S.," she said.
Arellano entered the country twice illegally. She was deported after her first attempt, then entered near Mexicali in 1997. She first worked in Washington state and gave birth to Saul, then separated from his father and came to Chicago in 2000.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gutierrez have sent letters to President Bush asking that Arellano be allowed to remain in the country. But in a statement, Durbin appeared to be pulling back on his original support.
Durbin said that since her son's health has improved, Arellano's situation is now no different from "scores of people." Durbin added: "We cannot fix the injustices of this system with private bills; only comprehensive immigration reform can permanently remedy this situation."
Arellano said she will not be separated from her son, who played with toy trucks as she talked to reporters. She asked him if he would go back to Mexico with her, and he didn't want to, so she decided to stay in Chicago despite the deportation order.
...
A scam? We used to understand that people came here for a better life. Every group complains about the group that came after them. But I've never seen any history indicating that anti-immigrant feeling was ever at anything near the level it is at now. I have to wonder what the reason for that is. And I can't imagine it's because they don't speak English or they allegedly engage in crimes. Let's face it, if one is a first or second generation immigrant, then the folk who came here didn't speak English. People who spoke the same language huddled together in ghettos, barrios, hoods...whatever you want to call them. And each immigrant group comes here and a percentage engage in criminal activity. That's why we had Irish mobs; Jewish mobs; Italian mobs... now we have other things. But I don't think if one scales it out that it's really very different.
