Utah family seeking asylum being deported today

[pam]

Well I'm just going to bluntly tell you how I feel about this decision. It totally sucks.

ksl.com - Family seeking asylum will be deported Thursday

[Wingnut]

Ditto. That totally sucks. And only one day's notice? Ouch.

From the article:

Maggie, 14, and her 17-year-old brother Kevin are honor students. Ten years ago, they came to the U.S. with their parents on a visa waiver. Then the family applied for asylum. They became tax-paying citizens and waited for years to gain legal status.

I'm confused by this. If they're citizens, they can't be deported. Does this mean that they became like tax-paying citizens?

[Jenamarie]

Ditto. That totally sucks. And only one day's notice? Ouch.

From the article:

I'm confused by this. If they're citizens, they can't be deported. Does this mean that they became like tax-paying citizens?

Could be. My husband is a tax-paying NON-citizen. He has legal residency, but he's only officially a citizen of Canada.

[pam]

Ditto. That totally sucks. And only one day's notice? Ouch.

From the article:

I'm confused by this. If they're citizens, they can't be deported. Does this mean that they became like tax-paying citizens?

I take it to mean they are tax paying citizens of the community. Not necessarily that they are citizens of the US.

[NeuroTypical]

Hmmm. Ordinarily, a flurry of melodramatic outraged talking-headdery is a big red flag that there's another side of the story that isn't being told. In my search for the other side, all we see is this short statement from ICE:

Foreign nationals, like the Correas, who choose to exercise the privilege of entering the United States under the visa waiver program are prohibited from seeking to change their status after arriving here and are not entitled to a formal deportation hearing.

Nevertheless, over the course of four years, the Correas' immigration case underwent a comprehensive review by judges at several levels of our legal system, and the courts held that he and his family did not have a legal basis to remain in the United States. ICE is now in the process of making arrangements for the family's return to Argentina.

I'm wondering exactly how sudden and unexpected this news actually is to the Correa family. I'm wondering if it isn't true that they've been told numerous times, starting from the very outset a decade ago, that a visa waiver deal is a temporary thing, and they've refused to pursue other avenues to citizenship.

I've worked with a bunch of visa waiver folks over the years - they fell into two categories. The folks who were here temporarily, and the folks who were pursuing other ways to come here permanently and bring their families here.

Asylum from Argentina for anti-mormon harassment? I didn't think things were that bad in Argentina. A quick search of "argentina" at LDS.org says there were 277,000 members in 64 stakes there in 1999. There are operating temples in Buenos Aires and Cordoba.

Yeah, we should have sympathy and compassion for folks, especially kids who did nothing to deserve such a disruption in their lives. And yeah, surely there is a lot of ways our immigration system needs to be fixed. But in this case, it looks like the total story isn't near as one-sidedly tear-jerking as the media is portraying.

LM

Edited November 4, 2010 by Loudmouth_Mormon

[Wingnut]

Asylum from Argentina for anti-mormon harassment? I didn't think things were that bad in Argentina. A quick search of "argentina" at LDS.org says there were 277,000 members in 64 stakes there in 1999. There are operating temples in Buenos Aires and Cordoba.

Yeah, I wondered about that, too.

I still think it sucks.

[pam]

I still think it sucks too.

It's like saying, Thanks for being good tax paying citizens of the community. Thanks for being good people who have supported the community. Thanks for not causing any problems. Thanks for raising 2 good kids who have excelled in school.

Now get out.

Our system for sure needs work. It's not like they were illegals who are constantly in trouble with the law, use benefits that they don't pay for, traffic drugs etc.

Edited November 4, 2010 by pam

[Just_A_Guy]

I have a hard time getting too worked up here; the situation is largely of their own making.

1. They knew, when they came, that they could only stay for ninety days.

2. When the ninety days were up, they had a nine-month window in which to apply for political asylum from any "persecution" they were facing.

3. Instead of going to a lawyer, or to the proper federal authorities, they apparently put their trust in the husband's employer. Frankly, I don't think this is justifiable. If I'm in Britain, I don't pay my taxes to BP. If I'm in France, I don't look to Airbus to handle my visa issues. Maybe the husband's employer made some false representations to him--and if so, maybe they should be liable. But that isn't the federal government's fault.

And don't even get me started on the inherent corruption in the idea that a company that accepted, for tax purposes, a social security number they knew to be fraudulent, might be able to exercise enough pull with the federal government to exempt this guy from ordinary ICE regulations--which seems to have been what this guy was gambling on.

4. The family had their case--and an appeal--heard, and a decision issued, four years ago. If they had decided to obey the law at that time, they'd be comfortably ensconced back in their homeland by now. But instead they decided to game the system, taking risk that the United States of America wouldn't bother to enforce its own laws.

They lost.

Now they're trying to sell us on the risible idea that in a country the size of Alaska, they couldn't find a single place where Mormons could live safely--hence the need to come and live in a country a hemisphere away.

Edited November 4, 2010 by Just_A_Guy

[BookofMormonLuvr]

"anti-Mormon harassment" in Argentina?!?!

No wonder they were denied asylum.

[HoosierGuy]

Them are the rules. Heartless? So is a big insurance company dropping their paying customer because they got cancer or some other disease that can be costly. But as they

say - them are the rules! So to the family from Argentina - you had your time in court and the judge said no, so good bye!

[Just_A_Guy]

"anti-Mormon harassment" in Argentina?!?!

No wonder they were denied asylum.

In fairness, AFAIK they weren't technically "denied" asylum--they never applied until it was too late to do so, and so the court threw out their application on timeliness grounds.

Although I doubt they'd have gotten very far with an immigration judge, trying to paint Argentina as some kind of backwater of religious persecution.

[rameumptom]

What's mostly sad about this is how many LDS members are so anti-immigration and will applaud such deportations. In many ways, many Christians have lost their compassion and perhaps even their souls, in the name of protecting their own.

We should be deporting those who are serious law breakers. And we should encourage good families and hard workers to move here. It would help solve many of our economic problems to do so.

And while Argentina may have hundreds of thousands of members and two temples, that pales to the 40 million that live there. It is very possible that the area in which they lived had a lot of anti-Mormon activity. Just look at what happens here in the USA when we have a temple open house!

Argentina is known to be very hard on religions. They made it illegal to be a Jehovah's Witness in the 1970s, simply because the JWs refused to salute the flag or perform military service. There are currently 121,000 JWs there, but they still had persecution for many years in Argentina.

Edited November 4, 2010 by rameumptom

[Wingnut]

What's mostly sad about this is how many LDS members are so anti-immigration and will applaud such deportations. In many ways, many Christians have lost their compassion and perhaps even their souls, in the name of protecting their own.

We should be deporting those who are serious law breakers. And we should encourage good families and hard workers to move here. It would help solve many of our economic problems to do so.

Double thanks to this part.

[Mahone]

I can see both sides of this... on the one side, you have a seemingly hard working family who would be of benefit to the USA and give back to society, as opposed to simply taking. On the other side, the law is the law. If they make allowances now for not obeying procedure, it sets a dangerous precedent, one that governments try so hard to avoid.

I think it was JAG that said "hard cases make bad law". So true.

[Just_A_Guy]

I think it was JAG that said "hard cases make bad law". So true.

I didn't invent the statement, but I've quoted it before and I certainly agree with it in this case.

We should be deporting those who are serious law breakers. And we should encourage good families and hard workers to move here. It would help solve many of our economic problems to do so.

I'm all for sane immigration reform, but even under the status quo there are processes designed to make that kind of determination. For example: if they want political asylum, we ask them to declare that within one year of arrival. If people can't be bothered to do a thirty-second google search to at least get the basics about how to comply with those processes--what then?

And while Argentina may have hundreds of thousands of members and two temples, that pales to the 40 million that live there. It is very possible that the area in which they lived had a lot of anti-Mormon activity. Just look at what happens here in the USA when we have a temple open house!

No arguments there. What I question is whether the natural first response to non-state-sponsored religious persecution is "oh, gee, there are people in my town who don't like Mormons; let's move six thousand miles to a city in another country where they speak another language". Even the Mormons in Missouri didn't automatically make for Mexican territory--they went to Illinois to have another go of things under the Stars and Stripes.

We know the Correas didn't comply with applicable law, and (not to put too fine a point on it) I don't think they're being completely candid about why they felt compelled to leave--not just a suburb or a city or a state--but an entire nation. Legally speaking, I see very little reason to allow them to stay.

[pam]

Them are the rules. Heartless? So is a big insurance company dropping their paying customer because they got cancer or some other disease that can be costly. But as they

say - them are the rules! So to the family from Argentina - you had your time in court and the judge said no, so good bye!

Them are not the rules. I've worked in the health insurance business. The only time a member was dropped or denied benefits was if the plan had a calendar year maximum or they reached their lifetime maximum specified on their policy. Many policies also have limitations on what they cover and are very much specified in plan booklets under "plan limitations."

Many want to blame the insurance companies for things like this. It's not always the insurance company that is to blame. Employer sponsored plans are based on the decisions of what the employer wants to pay for. Self funded insurance plans (which all claims are paid for by the employer and administered by a 3rd party) are very specific as well.

The problem is, a lot of people don't read or research the plan provisions before deciding on a plan and then want to blame the insurance companies when a claim gets denied as "not covered."

[Wingnut]

I have a question. The article says that the family will not be allowed to return to the USA for 10 years. Does that include the kids, who are not at fault in any way? One of them is 17, and had likely started the process of applying to schools. Could they be allowed to return for educational purposes?

[Suzie]

The kids are obviously not US citizens that's why they didn't have a choice but to leave with their parents.

Second, Argentina is not the size of Alaska (not that it matters but I was confused by that comment...) Anti-Mormon sentiment over there? No way.

The issue here was the visa. When Argentina enjoyed the benefits of a visa waiver (90 days) a lot of people started moving to Miami and other areas with the intent of residing there. The thing is about that particular visa is that the person cannot change status WITHIN the US. They have to leave the country and apply for another visa.

What I don't understand is why they requested asylum two years later if they were truly being harassed? Instead, they moved by some friends with the understanding that the person would file a work visa for them. It didn't happen.

[Just_A_Guy]

Second, Argentina is not the size of Alaska (not that it matters but I was confused by that comment...)

True; in point of fact--it's bigger. I guess my point was--the nation is geographically huge, and it's silly to claim that there's no place they can go in Argentina to get away from whatever local anti-Mormon sentiment they were actually facing.

[john doe]

I agree, this situation stinks. These seems to be good, hard-working, productive, law-abiding, honest people in almost every way-- but one. They failed to maintain legal status as visitors to the country. You could argue that they deserve to stay here far more than many of the millions of others here illegally. I feel bad for them. It makes you wonder why the people who have targeted them don't spend more of their time kicking out people who come here and commit serious crimes and less time going after people who actually contribute positively to the communities they attempt to integrate into, like these people have done.

On the other hand, these people did break our immigration laws. They knew it. They gambled that the system would be so overwhelmed by the thousands upon thousands of legitimately bad people who are here illegally would ignore them if they kept their noses clean. But the system finally caught up with them and put them into the big net of people who are here illegally, regardless of whether they are hardened criminals or good people looking to improve their lives. I feel bad for them, but they put themselves in this situation. If there were some way that someone could somehow give them legal status, I would support that action. But I don't see how we can make an exception to the law just because we feel bad for this family and their plight. Sometimes good people get caught up in making poor decisions, and they have to pay the consequences. This is one of those times.

[HoosierGuy]

We should be deporting those who are serious law breakers. And we should encourage good families and hard workers to move here. It would help solve many of our economic problems to do so.

Yeah, we do that already. Companies can import foreign people on those special work visas and pay them less than what an American usually earns. Is that solving our economic problems?

[Iggy]

I agree with John Doe.

I also want to add one more thing - this family are LDS, correct? Then they have also ignored the 12th Article of Faith - We believe in being asubject to bkings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in cobeying, honoring, and sustaining the dlaw.

According to what others have posted previously, they have repeatedly ignored the law of this land.

What does their children's grade point average have to do with them NOT obeying the law?

Anyone who purchases anything in the US is going to pay sales tax (in most states) regardless if they are legal residents or not. If you book a room in a hotel or motel you will pay at least one tax if not more, depending on the city, county and state regulations. Same for food in a restaurant, gas, etc.

So there goes the Paying Tax thing, again, what does that have to do with them NOT obeying the law?