[ALBSA-Info] Look out

[irma spaho]

*** This excerpt is taken from Shusterman's newsletter.


For Doing Her Civic Duty Immigrant Faces Deportation


>
>Growing up in America, where she has lived since she was adopted at three
>months of age, Julia Parker learned that it was her civic duty to vote in
>our democracy. When she turned 18, she did.
>
>Unfortunately, as she later found out, she is not a U.S. citizen. Immigrant
>children adopted by U.S. parents are not automatically citizens. In Ms.
>Parker's case, her father died before completing the paperwork, and so she
>is technically not an American. An innocent mistake, except that in 1996,
>Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility
>Act (IIRAIRA), a sweeping law that contains many harsh provisions that are
>now wreaking havoc with American families.
>
>One of those provisions makes it a felony for non-citizens to vote. There
>are no exceptions for innocent mistakes like Ms. Parker's. She faces the
>prospect of being deported to Eritrea, where she was born. Her plight was
>featured in two-parts on the CBS News segment "Eye on America" in April.
>
>According to the CBS reporter, the sponsor of this provision of the 1996
>law, Charles Canady (R-FL) suggested that the Immigration and
>Naturalization Service should "look the other way" when faced with a
>situation like Julia Parker's.  However, putting the onus on a law
>enforcement agency to decide in which situations it should or shouldn't
>enforce the law breeds cynicism and disrespect for the law.
>
>The 1996 Immigration Act should be fixed. It is overly harsh and
>inflexible.  It treats someone who makes an innocent mistake the same as a
>hardened criminal. Congress must act to change the law.
>
>Julia Parker's story can be found on the CBS website in two parts, at:
>
>        http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,185282-412,00.shtml
>
>and
>
>        http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,185611-412,00.shtml
>
>
>Other stories of immigrants and their families caught up in the overly
>harsh provisions of the 1996 immigration law can be found on the National
>Immigration Forum's "Fix 96" Campaign pages on the Forum's website at:
>
>	http://www.immigrationforum.org/fix96/default.htm
>
>

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com