Suppose you’re a single mom or dad and make the conscious decision that you’re going to commit a crime. You get away with the crime, but now you’re living in fear that law enforcement will catch up with you, arrest you, then put you in jail, separating you from your kids. Who’s at fault?
A single mom, undocumented, living in the shadows of Ice
…
Maria – a pseudonym – says “it’s the little details you don’t think about†that make life difficult for her and other 11 million undocumented people living in the US. She routinely sees her three children noticing the differences between them and their classmates. “Other people get in the car, buckle the kids up, put the heat up and drive. I can’t do that.â€
In Portugal, Maria was a professional seamstress. A fine career, but she still couldn’t make ends meet. Working seven days a week only covered the basic bills and rent, even with a joint income. Her then husband sometimes worked construction or other odd jobs. “Anything else I grew on my own, like fruits, vegetables … I had animalsâ€.
Portuguese citizens are one of 38 nationalities exempt from needing a tourist Visa. As a part of the Visa Waiver Program, they can lawfully remain in the US for up to 90 days. The family flew to New Jersey in 2002.
Once there, Maria and her family made the decision to stay. She hoped to find a stable job that could afford them savings, and schooling for herself and her daughter. They settled well into Newark’s Portuguese community, and soon Maria found consistent work as a housecleaner through a friend. She had two other boys.
She and her family made the conscious decision to violate U.S. federal law. This is not the fault of the United States and its citizens. We bear no responsibility for her criminal behavior. This is on her head.
Today, she is a single mom of three and her household’s sole source of income. She starts her day at 5:15am six days a week by watching the news before heading to the gym where she works maintenance. It pays substantially better than housecleaning.
How is this gym employing her? She has no authorization to work. Either they’re employing her illegally or she has committed identity theft, which can harm actual U.S. citizens. She claims she has no social security number later in the article, which, of course, is meant to be a tear jerker and tell us all how wonderful illegal aliens are and that we should simply reward them with citizenship for breaking our laws.
Living in New Jersey, and with her ex-husband in prison, Maria feels safe and at home – but the fear of deportation, and being separated from her children, is paralyzing. She also fears for her personal safety. “If I have to go back, he’s going to be there and I’m going to be dead,†Maria says, referring to her ex- husband.
Though she has never committed a crime – in fact, she has filed her taxes every year since 2002 – she and her daughter are on Ice’s radar. The morning after Maria returned home from the hospital, two officers knocked on her door. She let them in.
“I was terrified. I thought that they were there for me. I didn’t think I had a choice. They demanded me to give them my ex-husband’s passportâ€. She did.
At the end of the day, she put herself in this position. And every illegal seems to have a Story Of Woe (he ex-husband is a nutjob who raped her 17 year old daughter and threatened to kill people). But, this is Not Our Problem. The illegals, like “Maria”, put themselves in this position. Are we supposed to reward 11 million plus illegals with citizenship, or even just resident status, for their bad behavior?
Perhaps we could take care of our own, first. Our homeless, our veterans, our poor, our downtrodden.
If, as she claims, she has no Social Security number, how has she “filed her taxes every year since 2002?” If she is working as a contract employee with a federal tax ID number — the only way she could be legally paid — then she would be liable for both the employer’s and employee’s halves of Social Security and Medicare taxes.
There is no way that she could have done what she claims to have done legally! If she formed a company to get a federal tax ID number, she has to have paid herself a salary, meaning that Social Security and medicare taxes would have to be paid, or she was breaking the law by using company funds for her living expenses.
She is a criminal, and should be deported, after all of her assets have been seized to pay her back taxes.
I’ve said this before: an illegal immigrant cannot live in the United States without committing other crimes.
Cost of educating her kids=0.5 million.?. Cost of incarcerating her dirtbag partner=1.0 million.?. Paid by the taxpayers. Benefit to America= a nice clean gymnasium. Sounds like a fair exchange. Looks like her daughter is heading toward a welfare future. Pregnant and no mention of husband. And I wonder who is paying for her kids therapy?
If t-Rump and his Gestapo deport 100 a day it will take them just 301 years to deport them all, provided no more arrive in the meantime. It’s a fool’s errand, and you elected the right man for the job.
Since 2007, and President Obama’s clamp down on border crossings, over half of “illegal residents” overstay legitimate visas. And t-Rump wants Mexicans to build and pay for (LOL) The Wall, rather than doing the hard work of enforcing visas.
t-Rump is destroying this nation.
Are you shocked at how fragile America is?
JeffreyJeffery is right: we must deport not 100 illegal immigrants a day, but 10,000 or more!We must also greatly improve Visa overstay enforcement. All legal border crossings are recorded, and anyone who enters on a legal visa will have his departure recorded; that information should be put together with legal entries, and it’s a simple matter to have a computer program flag those entrants who do not depart on time.
Perhaps all legal entrants on time limited visas should be required to wear an ankle bracelet monitor. Then we can see where they are, and monitor their departure.
You’re exactly right:
Ronald Reagan was promised that this would never happen again. And now it is.
Rewarding behavior increases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated.
Still, and always true.
DACA is wrong, and compromising with wrong is largely what has been hurting our Republic as our DC servants have adopted Leftist programs and policies.
Do not reward unwanted behavior. No DACA unless you want it to happen again at our children’s expense.
jeffery cannot make a point without being insulting; means he has no point.
You know what I find amazing? We have all of this fancy computer equipment, but not only can we not seem to track illegal immigrants who overstay their visas, but we can’t get the National Criminal Information Center database, the one used for instant background checks current. The Texas church shooter was able to buy his weapon, legally, because the Air Force did not report his conviction on a domestic violence charge, along with his dishonorable discharge. The Parkland shooter was able to buy his weapon legally, because local law enforcement, mental health authorities and the local high school authorities didn’t do their jobs.
All of the tools have been given, but you can’t drive the nail if you never pick up the hammer.
Isn’t it funny that as the years go by, the numbers given to us for the amount of illegals living in the US continue to decrease? Few years ago, in the 90’s, it was told to us that there were at least 15 million illegals. But now we’re supposed to believe that there are fewer illegals?
I tend to believe the number… at least 30 million.