Posted on 05/22/2008 7:59:53 AM PDT by AuntB
A Kennesaw pastor was sentenced to nine years in prison Tuesday for her part in a profitable multi-state scheme to encourage illegal immigrants to file untruthful visa applications.
The Rev. Emma Gerald, 56, was convicted in December of helping mostly Brazilian immigrants in Cobb County, Florida and other states file applications for temporary residency, work permits, and travel permits.
"I'd like to apologize to the United States," Gerald said at her sentencing hearing Tuesday in Atlanta at the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Gerald said she "didn't think it was wrong," when she charged illegal immigrants hundreds of dollars to fill out untruthful applications.
Prosecutors had argued for a 14-year sentence, saying Gerald was responsible for more than 1,000 fraudulent applications, and her sentence was needed to deter others.
Gerald ran a small local church and conducted her scam in immigrant churches across the country.
Also found guilty of conspiracy were Gerald's son, Douglas Ross; Hudson Araujo, who helped set up meetings in Massachusetts; and Brazilian Pastor Ruy Brasil Silva, who introduced Gerald to his Bethel Christian Church congregation in Marietta. Sentencing dates for Silva and Araujo have not been set.
Some teen members of Bethel Christian Church translated Gerald's instructions into Portuguese for their congregation. They helped applicants fill out paperwork using an overhead projector and charged $30 to write boilerplate letters, they testified.
Church member Marcos Amador, 21, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced to time served, which was about two years. He has been deported to Brazil.
Amador filed a visa application for himself, hoping he could stay in the United States to study medicine.
Some of the first immigrants to apply did indeed receive visas and travel permits, although undeservedly.
The visa paperwork Gerald pedaled to church members was filed under an extension of a 1986 amnesty program from the Reagan administration. Part of the requirement was that applicants lived in the United States in the 1980s.
The government received 79,080 applications and denied about 89 percent, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said. All over the country, people were applying fraudulently, said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
Also: "The visa paperwork Gerald pedaled to church members was filed under an extension of a 1986 amnesty program from the Reagan administration. Part of the requirement was that applicants lived in the United States in the 1980s."
I wonder when and by whom this extension was granted. Congress, I would assume. Is it still in effect?
Twenty years later and we're still giving amnesty under the 1986 fiasco? You can see what would happen if they get through any more, like yesterday's ag bill....it never ends.
Gerald said she “didn’t think it was wrong,” when she charged illegal immigrants hundreds of dollars to fill out untruthful applications.
Not that there is anything wrong with that....
Well, Al Gore doesn't think it is wrong to charge first world economies trillions of dollars for carbon credits to subsidize third world Marxist hellholes. Nor does he think it is wrong to make a handsome profit in the process.
What will happen when the working and entrepreneural classes finally get fed up and cease to think it is wrong to put their heads on pikes?
Yeah, a minister didn't think it was wrong to lie, to encourage others to lie, to fraud her own government (is that the correct term?), to charge money to encourage others to defraud the government they want to live under, to aid and abet illegal activity, to encourage illegal activity, to participate in illegal activity, etc........some Christian minister. She sure hasn't studied the Bible or the U.S. Constitution.
hmmm.... it's ok! As long as it's not the Catholics!
> Gerald said she “didn’t think it was wrong,” when she charged illegal immigrants hundreds of dollars to fill out untruthful applications.
It wouldn’t be wrong to fill out untruthful applications — in the Church of Satan.
“...under an extension of a 1986 amnesty program from the Reagan administration...”
For those too young to remember, this was the infamous Simpson-Mazolli Act of 1986, a bipartisan disaster that purported to enforce immigration laws by closing the Mexican border to illegals and fining their employers, as well as granting amnesty to temporary workers...basically the same provisions that McCain-Kennedy recycled in the “Comprehensive Immigration” fiasco last year.
Of course, in 1986, twice as many illegals came out of the woodwork than was expected, millions of them magically qualified for amnesty and the border security and employer sanctions never were enforced. As a result, we have about 25 million illegals in the USA.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Unfortunately, we have a choice between 3 insane Senators that are running for the presidency.
A Kennesaw pastor was sentenced to nine years in prison Tuesday for her part in a profitable multi-state scheme to encourage illegal immigrants to file untruthful visa applications.
_________________________________________________
Hold on there...
She was just doing her “christian” duty
/s
Yep, she was just making a few bucks on the side, trying to make an honest dollar!/SAR Criminals, and libs, use the most blatant lies and expect people to swallow them whole.
Well, this is what happens when liberals try to “think”. Of course, they don’t do much better thinking than they do when “feeling”.
ping
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