Here are some great new PSAs from the American Immigration Law Foundation. Visit today for your copy, hang posters in your office or ask your local newspaper to publish them.
Archive for October 15th, 2007
Ruben Navarette has another great opinion piece about immigration on CNN today.
The reader offered a scenario — “Where you hire people to clean your toilets, they decide to stay in your house and they bring friends. You end up paying for their schooling and other privileges.”
You see the problem: “Where you hire people to clean your toilets.” Hmm. These people are here illegally, and yet you hire them to clean your toilets, reserving the right to bellyache about them and what they’re costing you. It’s the first act — hiring illegal immigrants — that sets the rest of the story in motion. I have a solution: Clean your own toilets, or at least make sure that those who clean them for you are in the country legally. Or, shut up already.
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Oh, it’s true that the United States is a country of immigrants. But in this case, what matters is that this also happens to be a country full of people who hire illegal immigrants. There is only one reason why so many Mexicans want to come to the United States: because there are so many jobs waiting for them here.
Some Americans still prefer to blame Mexico for illegal immigration. Of course, why wouldn’t they? That sure beats taking their share of responsibility for it.
The New York Times also points out an important fact about illegal immigration that is paving the way for the harassment and racial profiling of Latinos nationwide — noncitizens do not have the same rights as citizens. No Miranda warning, no warrants, etc. The Times piece is an eye-opening one.
Immigration agents are not required to obtain warrants to detain suspects. The agents also have broad authority to question people about their immigration status and to search them and their homes. There are no Miranda rights that agents must read when making arrests. Detained immigrants have the right to a lawyer, but only one they can pay for.
While criminal suspects are generally sent to jails near the courts that hear their cases, immigration agents have discretion in deciding where to hold immigrants detained for deportation. Many suspected illegal immigrants who were detained in Nassau County, for example, were quickly moved to York, Pa., distant from family and legal advice.
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Even immigrants who have lived here legally for many years, lawyers said, can run afoul of the immigration laws with minor infractions or misdemeanors. A late filing of visa renewal papers or a shoplifting citation can quickly spiral into an order for the ultimate penalty: deportation. Immigrants who fight the orders have more limited bail rights than American criminals and can spend years behind bars while their cases inch through the overburdened court system.


