A Tale of Two Immigration Situations

Today I present to you two stories of immigrants being deported.

Case #1
In the first, we have a couple who came here legally, filed all the appropriate paperwork, and was granted permission to stay. The husband is a doctor. The couple owns a store. They give generously to their community. They are now being deported because of a mistake in their paperwork. When both filed to stay here, they were single. When the permission came, they were married. Their marital status was not corrected.

Now the government says because of that error, they both must be deported. A simple enough mistake to correct, but instead of doing so, the government, in their infinite quest to red-tape everything to death, has decided to deport a couple who did everything right, made one tiny mistake in a huge paperwork process AFTER both were given permission to stay here, and is a huge benefit to this country and their community.

See the video for story number one HERE

Case #2
In case number two we have a man who knowingly came here illegally. He claims he came here because there was no work for him in his hometown in Guatemala. He also claims he never intended to stay here which is why he never bothered to learn the language [and what, pray tell was he going to do once he returned home if there is no work there? Could he really earn enough in a few short years to support himself and his family in style there?]

He says he only came here to get enough money to make things better for his family. He worked here (dishwasher) and saved enough money to fly home. He also tried to take a duffel bag filled with $50,000 onto the plane, and didn’t bother to fill out the declaration form stating he was taking more than $10,000 out of this country. Once caught illegally trying to leave the country with the cash, he was also busted on being here illegally. The government has seized his money and told him to get out of the country. His big concern – he wants his money. He says he earned it and it is his. He said he gave himself health problems by working here. [Yeah, the claim of many teenagers across America – doing dishes is going to kill them].

The video taped interview with the man showed absolutely no visible health problems, and there was no mention in any published report about him being arrested stating he had medical problems or that he was found in possession of any prescription medication. If you were leaving forever to go to a country with lesser medical care, and had a medical condition, wouldn’t you take some medicine home with you?

First, he came here illegally with the intent to be here illegally, work illegally, and then leave with his illegal ‘earnings’. In law, when one party breaks the law, they lose their right to any profits from whatever their illegal actions garnered them. This is why the government is allowed to confiscate the possessions of drug lords.

Someone who knowingly breaks the law is a criminal. Someone who intends to break the law and then follows through on that intent is a malicious criminal. Criminals have no right to profit from their illegal and malicious behavior. Lawfully, the money does not ‘belong’ to the criminal and he should be deported. The man is a malicious criminal and a liar and has no right and no business being here or to his ill-gotten gains. It is as simple as that.

See the video for story number two HERE

UPDATE: December 5, 2007
I ran a poll for 7 days after the publication of this blog post that went along with it. The question was regarding what should happen to the people in the aforementioned cases. The results are as follow:

60% of respondents felt everyone in both cases should be deported.
20% of respondents felt that none of those involved in either case should be deported.
20% of respondents felt that the couple in case #1 should be allowed to stay, while the man in case #2 should be deported without any of the money.

My appreciation to all those who participated in the poll.