EDITORIAL Bad INS law creates cruel, unusual
mess
The moving finger of the Immigration
and Naturalization Service writes, and having written, moves on, leaving almost
10,000 legal immigrants in an indeterminate detention that is unethical and
immoral.
And in any clear-minded view of law, illegal.
Whats written is the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act -- and it is a monster with teeth.
Teeth tough enough to chew up human rights, dignity and refuge
under the law.
At best, the INS, la Migra, has a hellish row to hoe.
Rounding up people attempting to do what most Americans forebears did,
get into America one way or another, can never be popular.
This is the nation trapped somewhere between the Statue of
Libertys welcome and the unwanted nonstop flood of poor people who by
land and sea -- seldom by air -- will pay almost any price, take any risk, to
enter the United States. The INS, sometimes badly, sometimes dutifully, has
been handed this mess to patrol and control.
Current anti-immigrant America is still making up the rules as it
goes along. In the case of that 1996 law, some of the provisions are
deplorable.
Whats worst is that INS has written, unchallenged by its
boss, the attorney general, a new definition for the existing criminal law term
aggravated felony.
A legal immigrant who commits a misdemeanor, who pays the fine,
pays his debt to society and returns to the everyday fold remains, under INS
interpretation, a felon; his crime, an aggravated felony.
Ten years after 29-year legal resident Gerardo Mosquera was
convicted and punished for selling $10 worth of drugs, a misdemeanor at the
time (but no matter, the 1996 law is applied retroactively), he was deported
back to his native Colombia. He left behind his U.S.-born wife, sons and
daughters. His despondent son, Gerardo Jr., took a gun and committed suicide in
the street outside the home.
Had Mosquera been Vietnamese, and therefore not deportable because
Vietnam would not accept him, he could be included among the INS
lifers. These are detained as deportees for life -- they can be
neither returned nor released. Their INS detention exceeds their original
sentences and will continue to do so by increasing factors.
For misdemeanor detainees, the people described as nondangerous
detained noncitizens in recent Congressional testimony by Bishop Nicholas
DiMarzio, each INS district creates its own release policy. DiMarzio is Newark
auxiliary and U.S. Catholic bishops migration committee chair.
The Catholic Legal Immigrant Network reports enormous difficulties
with the process, including timing of hearings, detainees inability to
contact their lawyers, notices in a language the detainees cannot read and lack
of information about what applicants for release must prove. This situation is
a cruel and unusual mess.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act is
an example of a bad law almost being worse than no law at all. It abuses human
rights. Attorney General Janet Reno ought to clean up the laws results
while the administration tries to persuade Congress to clean up the Act
itself.
National Catholic Reporter, March 12,
1999
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