Jorge Garcia, husband and father of two, deported Jan 15 2018 (MLK Day)

[upant]

• not that it should matter.

you still ignore his personal responsibility in all of this.

one common argument is the illegal immigrants have no employable skills

not mine. many in the gop really like the cheap labor. i think they are being abused because of their status.

i see a difference between legal and illegal immigration. change the law if you don’t like it, but follow it until changed.

you didn’t answer, are you willing to kick the illegal immigrants who don’t have a business out?

Better border security is the way to prevent more illegal immigration

are you against the wall?

Are you opposed to pardons generally, or just to this potential pardon?

i am not in a position to pardon people. i leave that decision to those who can do that.

in this case he was not pardoned by the judge, so the law must be followed.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

you didn’t answer, are you willing to kick the illegal immigrants who don’t have a business out?

I certainly would not use that a sole criterion. But if a person does have a successful business I would be more inclined to let them stay, as opposed to someone who is making money holding up convenience stores.

Better border security is the way to prevent more illegal immigration

are you against the wall?

That depends on the cost. If it can be done for a reasonable cost I would not be against it.

Are you opposed to pardons generally, or just to this potential pardon?

i am not in a position to pardon people. i leave that decision to those who can do that.

So if Jorge were to be pardoned you would not be disturbed to see him and his family stay right here?

 

[upant]

So if Jorge were to be pardoned you would not be disturbed to see him and his family stay right here?

nope

 

[Brendan]

Brendan:

Under what conditions should ICE under Trump ignore a court order, even one issued under the previous administration?

In this administration? When it is an influential friend of the President. Then a complete pardon is in order.

So you are saying that the court orders of the Obama administration should be ignored under such circumstances?

 

[Arkansan]

I certainly would not use that a sole criterion. But if a person does have a successful business I would be more inclined to let them stay

Why? If he’s an economic asset, then shouldn’t we be unselfish and let Mexico have him back?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Mexico is not asking to have him back. And his economic value is tied to the location with business contacts. He would be of no special value if moved to Mexico.

 

[Theo520]

There is so much missing information, especially on why his efforts to become a citizen failed.
If his wife is a US citizen, he should qualify. It’s even common that spouses have to leave the country before gaining citizenship.

Fundamentally I don’t think we can allow so many to flaunt deportation orders, they become meaningless.

 

[StarMapp]

Yeah, that is puzzling. The country doing the deporting seems to think that the status of the individual in the eyes of the source country remains the same, but some countries close the books. What happens then?. They are under no protection from that country’s laws. The status is more kin to diplomatic, it’s just that they can’t declare as being part of a nation…yet.

I’d skip out and find an island and declare my own nation. (it’s been done.) I’d still need to take my baggage which is my 20 ft Halman. If you see a guy with a long beard wearing skimpies when your on a tropical white sanded island, then you could be deported by me. However, my Dept. Immigration is quite flexible. If you brought some hot dogs and coolers, maybe that qualifies. Better chance if you play a guitar and like S&G and country, your definitely a citizen I can use. One thing is you need to agree that I win all the elections.

 

[starlady]

That’s just the thing - there’s not a pathway to citizenship for everyone. Most of the time (not all), you need an employer or family connection in order to get permanent residency, which is needed before citizenship. Usually, you get a green card because someone else submitted a petition on your behalf.

For people who cross the border illegally, or overstay their visas, normally in order to adjust status, they need to have an immediate relative (spouse/parent/child) who is a US citizen sponsor them. Jorge and his family, when they came over, most likely didn’t have any immediate US citizen family members who could sponsor them, basically leaving them in limbo. Now, undocumented immigrants often have US citizen children, but they have to wait until they’re 21 to sponsor their parents. If they have a US citizen spouse, the spouse could sponsor them, and it seems that Jorge and his wife tried, but somehow (and I don’t have details on why that was), it didn’t work and he ended up in deportation proceedings. Jorge’s parents would have had no way to become citizens, unless Jorge himself (or a sibling) was over the age of 21 and became a citizen and sponsored them. It’s complicated. In comparison, citizenship is easy in my opinion, but you have to be a permanent resident first (have a green card), and getting that is the hard part and why so many don’t do it.

It’s not as simple as saying, “well, why didn’t they apply?” They didn’t apply because most likely they didn’t qualify, and it’s not as simply as merely registering your interest and intent.

When I worked in immigration for a non-profit, it was a lot of things to keep straight, and every single case had to be analyzed thoroughly. I liked it a lot and continue to try staying up to date on the shifting regulations, but it was sometimes a headache.

 

[Theo520]

That’s just the thing - there’s not a pathway to citizenship for everyone. Most of the time (not all), you need an employer or family connection in order to get permanent residency, which is needed before citizenship. Usually, you get a green card because someone else submitted a petition on your behalf.

He married someone who I assume is a citizen, that’s a guaranteed path to residency.
We aren’t getting the whole story, maybe he really hasn’t tried very hard to become legal.

I’ll add, if you knowingly marry an illegal, you knowingly accept a chance you may need to move, or have your family separated. No crocodile tears pleased.

 

[starlady]

starlady:

That’s just the thing - there’s not a pathway to citizenship for everyone. Most of the time (not all), you need an employer or family connection in order to get permanent residency, which is needed before citizenship. Usually, you get a green card because someone else submitted a petition on your behalf.

He married someone who I assume is a citizen, that’s a guaranteed path to residency.
We aren’t getting the whole story, maybe he really hasn’t tried very hard to become legal.

I’ll add, if you knowingly marry an illegal, you knowingly accept a chance you may need to move, or have your family separated. No crocodile tears pleased.

It’s not guaranteed. If someone who entered illegally marries a US citizen, they have to submit a massive application that proves otherwise good moral character (pays taxes, minor or no criminal history, involvement in the community, etc.). A couple DUIs or failure to pay speeding tickets could be enough to prevent that. And then there’s the part from the spouse. They have to prove that the spouse would suffer extreme hardship (financial, emotional, physical, etc.) if their foreign spouse were not allowed to remain in the US (or if they had to move with them out of the country…dangerous area, not knowing the language, far from family, etc.).

That may sound like nothing, but I promise you, it’s not just filling out a form and sending it in. Proving “extreme hardship” is difficult and spouses have to provide lots of evidence. And then you are at the mercy of the immigration officer reviewing your application because it can be a bit subjective. When I worked in immigration, our office handled a few of these cases, and their files were huge.

I read in another article about this particular case that lawyer incompetence put him in deportation proceedings. I don’t know if that’s true or not, if it’s an excuse or not, I won’t say. But it’s not at all a guarantee.

Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver, just in case anyone wants to know.

 

[starlady]

I reread your post, and I grant that it’s a “guaranteed path” to permanent residency. But getting that waiver approved is extensive and not guaranteed by any means. I apologize if I misunderstood.

 

[Theo520]

I reread your post, and I grant that it’s a “guaranteed path” to permanent residency. But getting that waiver approved is extensive and not guaranteed by any means. I apologize if I misunderstood.

Immigration is hard work for everyone who does it legally, I don’t feel he deserves special consideration.

Would be willing to make general improvements in the process though. Maybe it’s intentionally hard to provide friction.

 

[pianistclare]

So true. My Irish born husband labored for 3 years of paperwork and FEES to get permanent residency.
It’s expensive, and you really DO need an attorney.
The thing is: If you had that kind of money laying around, you’d be in tall cotton back home.
You wouldn’t necessarily want to leave all that you know. Add in the violence of certain countries (the ones people are likely thinking about here), and it’s a very hard task .

My Irish husband is older, no thug, and no terrorist, But the hoops he had to jump through were incredible, Took every bit of our savings.

Most people who are anti-immigration really don’t have friends who are immigrants. ONce you realize they are the same as yourself, you mellow out quite a bit.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

I am the child of two immigrants. My husband is an immigrant, and I sponsored him. It was a lot of paperwork and record-keeping, and appointments with INS / ICE, and fees, but it was do-able.

 

[JanSobieskiIII]

They didn’t apply because most likely they didn’t qualify,

And if they don’t qualify, then they don’t get admitted. Why’s that so hard? How is that unjust?

 

[JanSobieskiIII]

My mother’s an immigrant. I’m not anti immigration.

I am anti giving people a free pass for breaking our immigration law. As are the majority of the legal immigrants I deal with regularly.

 

[starlady]

starlady:

They didn’t apply because most likely they didn’t qualify,

And if they don’t qualify, then they don’t get admitted. Why’s that so hard? How is that unjust?

I didn’t say it was or was not unjust. I was addressing a common misconception that you can merely apply for citizenship or adjust status just because you’ve been here for 20 years. People ask all the time “well, why didn’t they do this or that?” It’s really not that simple.

 

[SuperLuigi]

That is what Pope Francis spoke to when he said he did not know there were negotiable moral issues.

Good luck making that argument on Judgement Day.

“Oh, but seeing a friend, okay a person I WANTED to be my friend, get called a name trumped abortion in my moral code”.

I gather it is important to your side because one common argument is the illegal immigrants have no employable skills and end up sucking off the government teat for their whole lives. It is important to point out that such is not the case for Jorge, which is why I mention it.

That’s the problem with generalizations and enforcing everything on some kind of “just because” legal exactness.

Most people who are here illegally have some kind of documentation.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Getting legal immigrants is hard. Farm agencies in the Midwest have told me they have to advertise in 5 states before even considering it and it costs tens of thousands per immigrant.