May 14, 2008
US Immigration reform still long overdue
Clearly, plenty of people who don't belong in the USA are still managing to get here. Meanwhile, those who should be made welcome are being treated like this:
He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman university. . .Even a senator couldn't get the bureaucrats to let go; what of those who don't have any connections at all?But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.
Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit -- meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon -- eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.
Ten days after he landed in Washington, Mr. Salerno was still incarcerated, despite efforts by Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and two former immigration prosecutors hired by the Coopers.Salerno's girlfriend was savvy enough to get the NY Times to take an interest, which finally did the trick:
Less than 24 hours later, immigration officials intervened and arranged to deliver Mr. Salerno to Dulles, where last Friday he flew to Rome.
Posted by David on May 14, 2008 2:16 PM
It's paranoia only if the fear is groundless.
There are far too many "incidents" of this nature occurring.
Posted by: sue on May 14, 2008 7:14 PM
Of course mismanagement exists and errors are made. One has only to recall that amazing satire of the fellow living in the airport in a never-ending "Catch-22" abuse of authority. However, history shows us that a nation-state that cannot control its borders is a nation-state that will fail. It is as simple as that. Estimates of how many persons who should not be here must horrify anyone and those estimates seem to range from 12 million to 30 million. To imply any "special" status or even the "impracticality of making them leave" misses the point. They should not be here. The countries from which they came would deny entry to illegals by penalties much more severe than we seem to impose. Silly proposals to "absorb" them intead of making them leave because a particular industry needs cheap labor to exploit, strikes at the heart of all that is rational about law and national identity.
Posted by: Donald Wolberg on May 15, 2008 10:17 AM
The canard about nations not being able to control their borders as being doomed to fail is tired and erroneous.
This nation was founded by immigrants. Unless someone is a criminal (a real criminal) there is only one reason to exclude them from entering or exiting this country at will: socialism.
By creating welfare, public schools, medicare, social security, etc., we have given the xenophobic an excuse to exclude peaceful people from joining us in freedom. They have criminalized freedom and as people continue to act as though they should be free, they have ratcheted up this concocted criminality to further justify more draconian reactions.
It's sad that freedom is now illegal and used to put peaceful people such as this man in jail. For ten minutes or ten days, it's still unjust and absurd.
Posted by: Skyler on May 16, 2008 12:31 AM
cronaca.com