If Immigration in the US is an issue you pay attention to: It seems that there is a misunderstanding about what is criminal law and what is civil. It is an important distinction. If in fact a first entry into the U.S. without documents were a crime, every entrant would have the Constitutional protections we provide every person charged with a crime--including a jury trial, counsel provided at government expense, etc. Instead, our immigration law is civil, and therefore its only penalties can be civil. For initially entering the U.S. without documentation, the singular penalty is deportation, since no crime has occurred. To call such people illegals is not just dehumanizing, but legally and factually wrong. And just one more note-because we are a nation of laws, and because we have embedded due process into our Constitution, we cannot just round people up and ship them back. We look at each case to be sure the person is, indeed, deportable. Many people who are subject to deportation have relief available, also included in the civil immigration law. As a nation, we should be deeply grateful that we cannot be compared to Germany in WWII. The better statement is that we won that War to protect our Constitutions values and rights. ~ Roxie Bacon (the greatest immigration lawyer of our times & one of my favorite people on this planet too)
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 03:37:36 +0000