| Page 2 of 3 < > |
Pleading to Stay a Family
Bertha Rangel, left; Brenda Benitez; Brenda's father, Rodolfo; and Brenda's sister, Andrea, 8, wait to see a lawmaker on Capitol Hill.
(By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
And so Tapia is wrestling with a dilemma that has become increasingly common for illegal immigrant parents: leave her child to be raised by relatives in the United States or take her along to an unfamiliar country offering far fewer opportunities.
In Maryland, she noted, she and her husband earned $11.25 an hour and were able to provide Jessica with a computer, a modest but tidy brick house and free access to an elementary school she loves.
Before leaving Ecuador 14 years ago, they could barely afford to sublet a single room on Guncay's wages as a metalworker. Now Tapia worries he will no longer qualify for even that job because Ecuadoran factory managers prefer younger workers.
"I don't even know how my husband and I are going to survive there, let alone support Jessica," Tapia said in Spanish.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to limit immigration, said he has sympathy for children in Jessica's situation -- but no more so than for any other child victimized by a parent's mistakes.
"Kids often pay for the bad decisions of their parents. If you do something wrong that sends you to jail, well, your kids suffer for that. If you are careless with your mortgage and lose your house, your kids suffer along with you," he said. The parents "knew what they were doing when they had kids here, knowing that they were still illegal immigrants."
Krikorian applauded the new efforts against employers of illegal workers as a welcome departure from years of lax enforcement of immigration laws within U.S. territory.
In fiscal 2004, for instance, the government deported about 51,000 immigrants who had been in the United States for more than a year, accounting for just 3 percent of the number of immigrants expelled and less than 1 percent of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
Krikorian said lawmakers would only make matters worse by granting judges more discretion to allow those now being arrested to remain in the United States if they have U.S. citizen children, as proposed in a bill recently introduced by Rep. Jose E. Serrano (D-N.Y.).
"You'd be making having a kid an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card," Krikorian said. "You'd basically be saying that every illegal alien gets to stay permanently just because they had a kid once they crossed the border."
Krikorian also cautioned that by pushing the issue, immigrant advocates will strengthen sentiment in favor of revoking the automatic citizenship granted to nearly anyone born on U.S. soil -- a right set forth in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Indeed, many commentators refer to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants as "anchor babies" or "jackpot babies," because once they turn 21, they could sponsor their parents for U.S. visas.
