The following article confirms exactly what I said in my previous post; and
that is that it is not right to punish illegal immigrant children  -- via
deportation -- who were illegally brought to the USA by their parents, when
they were still minor children. Many of these children -- who are now teens
in high school and college -- were obviously too young to understand what
was happening in their lives at that time. Furthermore, the Bible clearly
teaches us that children are to submit to their parents. It's not their
fault that their parents illegally took them to the USA.

Let me make clear again that I am neither Democrat, Republican or
Independent; but I honestly feel that some of the Republicans who are
mentioned in the article are being way too hard-nosed with these kids. What
really surprises me about this harsh attitude that some of them are taking,
is that many Republicans claim to be Conservative Christians.

Well, such Christians should learn a thing or two from the One whom they
claim to believe in. Jesus taught us a lot about the sharp contrast between
mercy and the law. We can either be like the hard-nosed Scribes and
Pharisees who used the Mosaic Law to lord over the common people, or else we
can be like the kind-hearted Good Samaritan who helped a stranger out of his
own pocket, and who asked for nothing in return.

If some adult immigrants knowingly choose to take the risk of illegally
remaining in the USA, then it is only fair that they should be expected to
pay the consequences, if and when they are caught. Such people were aware of
the negative repercussions which could possibly result from their actions
when they made the decision to illegally cross over into the USA, or to
overstay their visas; but please extend leniency and mercy to their minor
and once-minor children.


Students Spared Amid an Increase in Deportations -- By JULIA PRESTON - NYT

August 8, 2010

The Obama administration, while deporting a record number of immigrants
convicted of crimes, is sparing one group of illegal immigrants from
expulsion: students who came to the United States without papers when they
were children.

In case after case where immigrant students were identified by federal
agents as being in the country illegally, the students were released from
detention and their deportations were suspended or canceled, lawyers and
immigrant advocates said. Officials have even declined to deport students
who openly declared their illegal status in public protests.

The students who have been allowed to remain are among more than 700,000
illegal immigrants who would be eligible for legal status under a bill
before Congress specifically for high school graduates who came to the
United States before they were 16. Department of Homeland Security officials
said they had made no formal change of policy to permit those students to
stay. But they said they had other, more pressing deportation priorities.

"In a world of limited resources, our time is better spent on someone who is
here unlawfully and is committing crimes in the neighborhood," John Morton,
the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview. "As
opposed to someone who came to this country as a juvenile and spent the vast
majority of their life here."

Still, Republicans say the authorities should pursue all immigrants who are
here illegally.

"The administration appears to want to pick and choose what laws they will
follow and which ones they don't," said Representative Brian P. Bilbray,
Republican of California, who is chairman of a House immigration caucus.
"They are trying to legislate from the White House," he said.

The administration is debating how to handle immigration now that the
chances for a broad overhaul that President Obama supports have faded for
this year.

The issue of illegal immigrant students has become pressing because young
immigrants have staged increasingly frequent and defiant protests to demand
passage this year of the piece of the overhaul that would benefit them.

Lawmakers who support that legislation have asked the administration to halt
student deportations until Congress takes it up. But most Republicans are
opposed to any action that would weaken enforcement against illegal
immigration.

An internal Homeland Security memorandum, released last month by Senator
Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, set off a furor among his fellow Republicans
because it showed immigration officials weighing steps they could take
without Congressional approval to give legal status to some illegal
immigrants -- including suspending deportations of students.

The moratorium had been requested by Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the
second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, and Senator Richard G. Lugar,
Republican of Indiana, the leading sponsors of the student legislation,
called the Dream Act.

But a White House official said that the administration had decided against
the moratorium, preferring to push for the student bill, which could grant
legal status to more than 700,000 young immigrants here illegally.

"Legislation does far more for Dream Act students than deferring
deportations would, in that it puts them on a path to citizenship," said the
official, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal policy debate.

Instead of a general moratorium, immigration authorities appear to be acting
case by case to hold up deportations of young immigrants.

"We have not had a single student whose case we handled who has been
deported," said Juan Escalante, a spokesman for the Dream Is Coming, an
organization that has waged petition campaigns and sit-ins to stop student
deportations. "Obviously, there is some sort of pattern there in the fact
they are not deporting students."

According to figures from the immigration enforcement agency, known as ICE,
the Obama administration has accelerated the pace of deportations over all.
In 2009, the authorities deported 389,834 people, about 20,000 more than in
2008, the final year of the Bush administration.

Last year, Mr. Morton announced the agency's new priorities, directing
agents to focus on capturing immigrant criminals. In the past 10 months, ICE
has deported 142,526 immigrants convicted of crimes, a record number, the
figures show.

At the same time, deportations of immigrants with civil violations, but no
crimes, dropped by 24 percent. (Under immigration law, being in the United
States without legal status is a civil violation, not a crime.)

The figures confirm "an enormous shift in targeting toward criminals," said
Susan B. Long, co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
at Syracuse University, which analyzes federal law enforcement data.

The vast majority of students who are illegal immigrants have clean criminal
records, and they would have to keep it that way to qualify to become legal
under the Dream Act. To meet its terms, immigrants must also have graduated
from high school and lived in the United States for at least five years, and
they must complete two years of college or military service.

Last month, the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in
Washington, estimated that 726,000 young immigrants would be immediately
eligible for legal status under the Dream Act, a big increase over earlier
estimates.

Lawmakers from both parties say the student bill draws wider support than
the broader overhaul -- but still not enough to make it likely to pass
before the election. Many young immigrants were brought to the United States
illegally as small children by their parents. Often they learn of their
illegal status only years later, when they are old enough to apply for a
driver's license or to attend college.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in recent days that
he was willing to bring up the Dream Act separately, but that he did not
have the 60 votes required to bring it to the floor.

Some students, after years of hiding, have concluded that it may now be
safer for them to come out in the open about their illegal status.
Immigration authorities have appeared to respond to the students' public
campaigns, student leaders said.

"What we have seen is it is better to be out there," said Carlos Saavedra,
national coordinator of the United We Dream network, which links dozens of
immigrant student groups from around the country.

On Thursday, after phone calls and petitions from more than 50 local student
groups, immigration authorities deferred for one year the deportation of
Marlen Moreno, a Mexican immigrant living in Arizona who has two children
who are American citizens and who would qualify to become legal under the
Dream Act.

Last month, students held a weeklong protest in Washington that ended with a
mock graduation ceremony on Capitol Hill, where hundreds of immigrants
wearing caps and gowns declared their illegal status.

Immigration agents have taken no action against 21 immigrant students who
were arrested on July 20 by the Capitol Police in sit-in protests in Senate
offices, according to David Bennion, their immigration lawyer. Several were
detained in the offices of Senator Reid and Senator John McCain of Arizona,
a Republican.

Earlier in the summer, students campaigned on behalf of Eric Balderas, a
19-year-old Mexican-born biology major at Harvard who was arrested by
immigration agents in San Antonio in June when he was about to fly back to
Cambridge after visiting his mother. With Harvard officials and Senator
Durbin also weighing in, ICE deferred his deportation indefinitely.

ICE has not held up deportations of young immigrants who have committed more
serious crimes or were previously deported.

Two immigrants who declared their illegal status during a sit-in in May in
the offices of Mr. McCain in Tucson -- Mohammad Abdollahi, 24, born in Iran,
and Yahaira Carrillo, 25, born in Mexico -- were briefly detained by ICE.
But the agency has not filed charges against them in immigration court that
would advance their deportations, their lawyer, Margo Cowan, said last week.

Ms. Carrillo, who has returned to her home in Kansas City, Mo., said she
felt relieved after she went public with her illegal status. Now a student
at Rockhurst University she has been living in the United States since she
was 7.

"I don't have to hide," she said. "I don't have to make
excuses as to why I
can't take certain jobs or scholarships. What is the worst that can happen
to me now? I'm already in deportation proceedings."



Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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