April 18, 2009
Arrested for being illegal? Here’s some work papers, then. You’re free!
So, this is what we have to look forward to under the Obama adminsitration, de facto amnesty:
After 11 years of living illegally in the United States, it was not until Gerardo Arreola Gonzalez was nearly deported that he finally received permission to work here.
Arreola was one of 28 illegal immigrant workers arrested in February after agents from U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement raided a car engine repair business.
According to the immigrants, a small army of federal agents surrounded Yamato Engine Specialists in Bellingham Washington, and began searching for workers who could not show they had authorization to work in the United States.
“My blood ran cold,” Arreola said in Spanish. “We went to the back door, but they were waiting for us. There was a bus already there, and they put us on it.”
As he was being taken to an immigration detention center, Arreola said he thought of his wife and the five children they have had while living here and who are U.S. citizens by birth. He expected to be deported back to Mexico, Arreola said, and he was doubtful about when he would see his family again.
“I would have been there and they would have been here,” he said. “I would have had to come back. I couldn’t take them there. My children don’t know anything about Mexico. They go to school here.” Watch Arreola and others discuss the raid »
Typically, cases like Arreola’s end in deportation. According to ICE, some 5,173 people were arrested last year in similar worksite raids.
However, the Bellingham raid was the first of its kind to take place during the Obama administration. During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Obama’s criticism of government immigration policies that split up families had given some people in immigrant communities hope that the raids would end if he were elected.
I apologize for quoting at such length, but there’s a little bit more that you need to read:
“The message is if you are hiring illegal aliens, ‘no problem.’ If you are in the country illegally, unless you commit a serious felony we are not going to bother you, so it’s a de facto amnesty,” Mehlman said. “Even if the administration cannot get an amnesty through Congress this year, what they are going to do is through administrative decisions allow everybody to remain here and send the signal that more people are welcome.”
Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said there was no policy shift and that other worksite immigration inspections had taken place since the Bellingham raid.
But Rosalinda Guillen said people in the pro-immigrant rights community were heartened by the fact that shortly after Napolitano ordered a review of the Bellingham case the immigrant workers who were still in immigration detention were released.
“I was just flabbergasted,” Guillen said. And the same immigration agents who had arrested the workers, she said, now promised them visas that would allow them to work temporarily in the U.S.
“Homeland Security drove them to the place where they had to go to fill out the paperwork for the work permits,” she said “That is totally unheard of.”
Let me get this straight. This guy broke into our country, lived here illegally for 11 years, produced five anchor babies, finally got busted, and was then handed working papers that would allow him to be here legally? In no way does that even begin to make sense.
Why does CNN always seem to get these stories wrong? Why am I hearing from the poor illegal? Why does CNN keep trying to get my sympathy for these criminals that broke into our country and stole a job from a fellow American?
This man, along with the millions of other illegals and the children they had on our soil, will not get my sympathy. And, he shouldn’t have gotten papers that made him legal. I agree that we should be cracking down on the businesses hiring these illegals. In fact, I think we should crack down on them so hard that it becomes in their best interest to not hire illegals. Then, once we take away their licenses to drive and other free social services, we won’t have to worry about rounding people up and deporting them. They will start to leave on their own. Isn’t that what we should be aiming for?
I’m sorry that Mexico sucks. That’s not my problem, though. If you don’t like it, either change it from within or go through the proper channels to enter our country. My problem isn’t with foreigners or immigrants, it’s with the illegality of some immigrants. Everyone should have to play by the same rules and those who don’t should not be rewarded.
To cross our border illegally shows they have no repect for our country or our laws. I understand their desperation, but that desperation is no excuse. If they break our laws just to get in, what makes you think they are going to have any respect for any other laws?
The actions of this administration show that they don’t care and they don’t respect our laws, either. They want amnesty for millions of illegals and will get it at any cost. They know the American people are against it so instead of Congress bringing it to the public with a bill, which they know will be defeated, this administration is arresting illegals just to make them legal without the public being any wiser about it.
The MSM is aiding them with this by reporting story after story from the illegals point of views, trying to evoke our sympathies. Don’t let them play on your emotions. I’m sure it is a sad situation for many illegals, but for many others it is just an opportunity to take from America anything they can: jobs, money, social services, and lives. CNN needs to start focusing on the the damage allowing so many illegals flooding our country has already caused and will continue to cause. As an Ameircan news source, its sympathies should lie with us, not them.
Should I make today Support an Illegal Day? All of this talk about Mexicans has me craving a quesadilla and some margaritas. What can I say? It’s supposed to be awesome out and CNN may be starting to get to me. Local Mexican restaurant, here I come!
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