Wife of Georgia State Senator sought for deportation
From the Associated Press via CNN...
State Sen. Curt Thompson has been a strong advocate of immigration rights, once speaking in Spanish from the steps of the Georgia Capitol against the adoption of some of the nation's strictest immigration controls....
Sascha Herrera, 28, has been in hiding since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrived at her home November 28 with an order to remove her from the U.S. She was not home at the time....
The deportation order stems from Herrera's repeated failure to appear before a judge on the asylum application, which Kuck said she did not know had been filed.
The case hinges on whether Herrera received a notice to appear in court, and whether the asylum application could have been filed without her knowledge, said Victor Cerda, former general counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to Kuck, Herrera came to the U.S. -- where her parents have been living -- on a visitor visa in 2003. She applied for an extension to the visa through a "notario" -- a man who claimed he was qualified to handle legal immigration matters -- but did not get it until 20 days before the extension was due to expire....
...the notario filed the asylum application, listing his address as hers. A telephone number listed for the notario, identified as Tomas Vilela, was being answered Monday by a fax machine.
Seems to me these so-called "advocates for immigrants rights" yammer away trying to belittle the laws that govern immigration, wanting to reward those who disobey the law, thus creating a gray market where people make money trying to trick INS. Now this guy's wife is caught in the very confusion he's helped to create. It's unfortunate, since it sounds like she attempted to obtain residency via legitimate means, but by also tapping into the gray market, she's now created a red-tape snafu that may send her back to Columbia.
Let me get on my soap box for a bit here. While I very much disagree with the idea that our immigration policies should be such that illegal immigrants would be rewarded for violating the law, I do recognize that there's a bigger picture here. The US is a nice place to live, and the only thing I did to "earn" it was to be born here. But the solution to the inequity is not to throw open the borders and allow anyone and everyone to rush in. That would remove what advantages there are to being a US citizen/resident. The key should be to improve other countries, so they are as good as the US. But the Democrats method is to "Nation Build" by bombing them, then flood them with aid so tied up with bureaucratic strings that it becomes virtually useless, then look down on them like they are dirt. That's never once succeeded in doing anything other than making foreigners despise us. But the Republican method seems to be to ignore the problem unless it bites us in the nose then make it move just out of "nose range" with either some hand-outs or military intervention. That's really not a solution either.
Look at Mexico. Few people know that Mexico itself suffers from a problem with illegal immigrants (and their laws are waaaay more harsh than ours, while they criticize ours). They get some economic benefit simply by being so close to us. The more Mexico's economy and government becomes stable, the fewer illegal immigrants want to go that last few steps to the US. And of course that simply pushes the problem into their lap, which is why they are so opposed to any toughening of our immigration laws.
But to the south of Mexico is Guatemala and Belize. So it stands to reason that more freedom and economic opportunity there, reduces the strain on Mexico and subsequently on us. To the south of Guatemala is El Salvador and Honduras. To the south of Honduras is Nicaragua. So working our way down, economic help to those nations reduce the upward burden on our own immigration problems. And there's a whole lot of improvement that's needed down there. In 2004 and 2005 my wife took her vacation time to go to Nicaragua with a medical and dental team to help the impoverished people in rural Nicaragua. (In the later part of 2005 she went to Louisiana to help rebuild a church after Katrina) So our approach to the immigration problem includes more than just words.
These trips help a lot, especially if you have any medical skills. Also the organization that oversees the trips, Baptist Medical & Dental Mission International, has quite a few full time missionaries in Central America, providing support for the people there. Friends of ours, Karl and Beth Brassfield are down there now finishing up their training to help build and run an orphanage for children in Nicaragua. Some other frineds of ours, Darryl and Cathey Johnson, have been down there since 1996. Darryl was a pharmacist and Cathey a nurse when they decided to set their careers aside, and dedicate their lives to helping the people of Nicaragua. The site has a link for people to donate to a specific missionary or mission project. Consider sending them something. Believe it or not a donation as little a $5 means something if enough people do it. It's one thing to complain about our immigration laws, another to take action against the problem itself by helping to remove the need that drives illegal immigration. You can talk or act, it's up to you.
Posted by Danny Carlton at December 5, 2006 6:18 AM