Pick the Right Story!

Yesterday there was a front page story on the local free newspaper Red Eye about deportation center in Illinois. I chuckled while reading the story because whoever wrote it didn't make it clear if they are for those to be deported or against them. (I don't believe that journalists don't take sides. They pick stories to write about because they care about one way or the other.)

The main character in this story was a 19 year old young man who was about to be deported to Mexico. He has been in the US since he was 5 (entered illegally with his family). He has just recently fathered a child with his 20 year old girlfriend - call me conservative but I don't want my children to think that having a child out of wedlock is a norm, ever. Now he's gone, somebody has to pick up the tab for this single mom and new baby. There must be some sort of health care he has received, who paid for that?

He was working hard - wait, who paid for his education for him to get the job?

He was picked up at a traffic stop - hint: safe drivers don't get picked up, anywhere.

He was found driving without a driver's license and arrested - great, I guess he doesn't have insurance either.

He would be deported to Mexico, a land he has little knowledge of and few friends - that's what I had when I first came to the US too! But I made it just fine.

This country has always been tolerant for irresponsible behaviors, but I don't have to be. I don't screw people and have a child while my own life is in limbo. I always try to do the right thing, because it might seem free now, but I know I will have to pay for it one day. But I hate to pay for others' mistakes. Where is the accountability?

10 Years of Punishment

Precisely because I am jumping through all the right hoops for my green card, I oppose changing the laws to let illegal immigrants get ahead of the legal ones. There is a story on NPR today about an American man's South American wife. She over stayed her visitor visa and was discovered by the USCIS. Apparently not knowing what that meant, she didn't realize that counts as an arrest and she needed to go to court to appeal. She was denied green card years later when she got married and tried to go through the legal channel. She was deported and not allowed to come back for 10 years. Amazingly, this didn't break the marriage, her husband goes down to see her and her kids every 3 months.

Don't want to sound insensitive here but she broke the law, as all the other illegal immigrants. If you over stayed your visa, knowing that your status is illegal, and don't even bother to find out how the law will punish you, maybe you shouldn't stay in this country. Because you don't respect the law. I understand people come here for opportunities, but if this country is overwhelmed by the lawless, then it won't provide equal opportunity to everyone anymore.