Friday, October 30, 2009

When will Immigration Reform come?

President Obama has promised that a draft immigration reform bill will be presented to Congress by the end of the year. This is not important to you, of course, if you think it is right that a lawful permanent resident must wait eight or more years to be joined by his wife, when a temporary worker can have his wife come to the US in a matter of weeks. It is also not important to you, if you think that it is fair that a person convicted of a drug crime more than 30 years ago has no right to show that he is a changed person and no threat to the US.

The present immigration system is flawed and vicious. The expansion of the term "aggravated felony" in 1996 made nearly every alien convicted of a felony deportable without relief, no matter how long they lived here, whether anyone was hurt by their crime, or how their family would be affected.

ICE arrests far too many non-criminal aliens, and the private facilities in which they are jailed are a national disgrace. ICE routinely "disappears" aliens, and leaves their family wondering what happened to them for 72 hours or more -- when it would seem easy to let the alien make a phone call.

Bring on that reform Mr. President, and be ambitious about it, for God's sake!