Politics: What We Should All Be Thinking
Nobody can believe this is happening and the blogosphere is in flames, but strategically, this nightmare points out something staggering: the immigration system in America is broken irreparably. It’s shot to pieces, overwhelmed by regulations and red tape, choked of funding and devoid of mission.
The Department of Justice (calling all the shots, of course) institutes these INS registration deadlines. Unfortunately, this scratched the surface of the INS’s massive ineptitude. When the people appeared to register, up to a fourth of them were detained for immigration violations. Many of those detained are in the middle of the glacial process of renewing, updating or contesting their status. But the system is so terribly flawed that this process was meaningless on ‘roundup day.’
The most distressing fact of all is that this system was designed to allow people to come to America, the land of the free, and make a new life here. Many of these people did just that, escaping from the Iran after the Shah fell or leaving since, in flight from religious persecution under the Ayatollahs. They made families, started businesses, paid their taxes, and all the while they continued to participate in the rapidly deteriorating INS system, standing on endless lines, exchanging multiple forms and letters with distant immigration offices, dutifully waiting for the opportunity to realize the promise of their long-sought dreams: becoming an American.
Instead of helping these people realize this dream, our immigration system is a conflicted, penal, puzzling labyrinth of regulations and a dozen different kinds of visas and statuses. Lawmakers interested in reducing or eliminating immigration (perhaps forgetting that we’re almost all descended from immigrants), have saddled the INS with quotas and budget caps and everything but the kitchen sink to try and break the system. Well, congratulations. It’s broken. Now try fixing the damn thing.
Nobody can believe this is happening and the blogosphere is in flames, but strategically, this nightmare points out something staggering: the immigration system in America is broken irreparably. It’s shot to pieces, overwhelmed by regulations and red tape, choked of funding and devoid of mission.
The Department of Justice (calling all the shots, of course) institutes these INS registration deadlines. Unfortunately, this scratched the surface of the INS’s massive ineptitude. When the people appeared to register, up to a fourth of them were detained for immigration violations. Many of those detained are in the middle of the glacial process of renewing, updating or contesting their status. But the system is so terribly flawed that this process was meaningless on ‘roundup day.’
The most distressing fact of all is that this system was designed to allow people to come to America, the land of the free, and make a new life here. Many of these people did just that, escaping from the Iran after the Shah fell or leaving since, in flight from religious persecution under the Ayatollahs. They made families, started businesses, paid their taxes, and all the while they continued to participate in the rapidly deteriorating INS system, standing on endless lines, exchanging multiple forms and letters with distant immigration offices, dutifully waiting for the opportunity to realize the promise of their long-sought dreams: becoming an American.
Instead of helping these people realize this dream, our immigration system is a conflicted, penal, puzzling labyrinth of regulations and a dozen different kinds of visas and statuses. Lawmakers interested in reducing or eliminating immigration (perhaps forgetting that we’re almost all descended from immigrants), have saddled the INS with quotas and budget caps and everything but the kitchen sink to try and break the system. Well, congratulations. It’s broken. Now try fixing the damn thing.
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