Posted on 12/27/2003 10:37:52 AM PST by yonif
SAN BRUNO -- A San Bruno couple facing deportation to Mexico and separation from their four American-born children were given another six months to stay in the country, thanks to Rep. Tom Lantos.
Because of a change in immigration laws, Maria and Alfredo Plascencia were scheduled to be deported to Mexico on Jan. 6 and taken away from their four school-age children, who were born and raised in the United States.
Moved by the Plascencias' 15-year struggle to stay in the country, Lantos, D-San Mateo, decided to give the family an early Christmas gift.
After Lantos wrote to the director of detention and removal at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C., the couple received a six-month reprieve.
This buys the couple some time to work with their lawyers and the federal government to resolve their complex case.
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It also allows Lantos time to introduce a private bill when Congress resumes on Jan. 20 that would permanently prevent the Plascencias from being deported.
The bill must be introduced in a subcommittee and then passed by both the House and Senate.
"The family can now have a happy holiday, secure in the knowledge that everything possible is being done to keep them together," Lantos said.
This isn't the first time Lantos has come to the Plascencias' aid. He wrote to immigration authorities in November 2002 that the family "would suffer economically and emotionally if either parent was deported."
The Plascencias' problems began in 1996 when they applied for permanent residency.
Their attorney advised them to seek asylum, but that was the same year President Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which raised the number of years to qualify for residency from seven to 10.
It also required asylum applicants to prove an extreme hardship.
While they did apply for asylum before the new law went into effect, the INS didn't look at their case until that September. As a result, it was denied.
The Plascencia family could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
"These are the kind of people that this country has opened its heart to," Lantos said. "It's a hard-working couple with four young children who are doing well in school."
This is outrageous. That the US government would force this couple to abandon their children and return to their native ...
What? They are allowed to take their children?
Well, then, it is doubly outrageous that the government of Mexico refuses to let this couple bring their children back to ...
What? They are allowed by the government of Mexico to bring their children?
Perhaps somebody can enumerate for me the number of nations to which I can illegally immigrate and then be allowed to take up permanent residency without the permission of that nation's government.
Is there even one of the several hundred nations in the world who have open borders and will permit me to burden them with my children? Just one?
"The family can now have a happy holiday, secure in the knowledge that everything possible is being done to keep them (here)together," Lantos said.
They have been here fifteen years, sucking off the public teat. Too long, send them back.
I doubt this. If these two had been deported, why wouldn't their children have gone with them?
I get ticked off as well as anybody else regarding illegals who use this country as an ATM machine and only want to live like Americans, not become one. However, here I don't see where they were on welfare, so I take it at least one parent was working.
More importantly, as emphasized in boldface, they tried going by the rules and got bit by bureaucracy - what kind of crap is the INS pulling? THEY were the ones who were late in processing the application, which was presented on time.
Until a little more info on these people, such as jobs, speaking American, etc. come out, I'd cut them a little slack.
I'm sure this is going to be a little difficult to prove --- they are trying to get in by using false claims. Nothing bad would happen to them if they and the children all go back to live in Mexico.
Nonsense. An asylum application is for people who are politically repressed and fear the government in their home country. Mexico's government is one of the world's most corrupt, but it is not cruel or oppressive.
Asylum is a dodge beloved by "immigration attorneys" to get their welfare recips into the country without actually following the usual rules. If someone is from North Korea, Cuba, Iran, his application is worth taking seriously. Asylum applicants from Mexico are simply overlawyered frauds.
By the way, the lawyer gets a percentage of the welfare... that's how this deal works for the attorney. Write a couple letters, get 10% of this family's take for a year (which will be about $49k if neither parent works over-the-table).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Another artefact of the egregious 1965 immigration act. We no longer place any value on immigrants that are good for our society, instead we value "family reunification." With those four kids, they have a toehold in the US that they can now use for chain migration that will continue until all the 4th cousins are in the USA. (Actually, it can continue indefinitely, because the cousins have cousins, and of course the family must be together).
That act must go. But the only man talking sense about it in the whole congress is fearless Tom Tancredo of Colorado (a state that has been particularly hard hit by immigration-related crime and idleness).
But, I hear you ask, if the family can now be reunited on a reunification visa, why don't they just do that? Well you see, that will require them to do something they haven't been doing, and don't intend to do, and no doubt raise their conveniently-American whelps not to do: obey the law. Why, visas require paperwork, and waiting, and all kinds of unpleasant things.
Why should they get a visa now when they didn't before? Why, that is just unfair and racist to expect them to start obeying the law. Law is a gringo construct, they don't have any in Mexico, so why should they recognise any here?
The worst part of this whole thing is the message it sends to Americans of Mexican descent whose ancestors came here legally and who have worked productively. It tells them: You're a chump.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
What is so complex about it? They are illegals. Deport them, but let them take their kids with them. We need a change in the asinine law that makes a kid a citizen just because the mother manages to get to the border before delivery. Either way, minor children belong with their parents. Send them all back.
Those parents could well be working and paying their share of taxes. Many illegals do.
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