| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front |
| Pakistanis queue to leave US |
| 2003-03-28 |
| Hundreds of Pakistanis are seeking asylum in Canada rather than registering with the US under its controversial anti-terrorist laws. The Special Registration Programme, as it is known, affects all temporary resident adult males from 25 mainly Muslim countries. The deadline for Pakistanis to register expires on Friday, but many are too afraid to register and are leaving the US instead. Gee, why is that? Many have been living illegally in the US for years - for instance, on tourist visas which have long since expired. These include families who, for the most part, have lived quiet, undisturbed lives but who do not have proper residency papers. Oh, that's right, they're here ILLEGALLY!!!! At one of the border crossings into Canada, there are now some 800 Pakistanis in makeshift accommodation, waiting for the Canadian Government to let them in. Have fun, Canada! Deadlines for citizens from a number of other countries have already passed, with more than 100,000 people coming forward. Since late last year, the US authorities have been interviewing, photographing and fingerprinting men in an attempt to keep better track of who comes in and out of the country. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, that's for my boot. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #15 I can just see Mr Pakistani man shivering,drinking a molson and listining to a Brain Adams cd.Go Habs eh. |
| Posted by: Brew 2003-03-29 01:29:58 |
| #14 Sorry Bruce - civility's over. I live in San diego, hear all sorts of the same sob stories, and have gotta say: no-one but these illegal residents put themselves and theis families in this terrible position. Depending on periodic amnesties is not a strategy, but a hoping for Christmas several times a year. The citizen children are entitled to be treated accordingly and your clients should have their asses air-dropped from whence they came. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-03-28 22:49:27 |
| #13 Bruce, I may set a record for civility by me (two in a row! :-) I'm a physician and I see some immigrants as part of my practice. Yes, the INS is massively incompetent. Yes, after 9/11 anyone from certain countries got hassled. I don't doubt your stories. For the example you offer (married to an American, filed petition for green card), those hassled should be banding together for a class-action suit. You're a lawyer, you've seen the examples set recently by the anti-rave stupidities in Houston and Racine, you know this can be done. For the legal immigrants, I have sympathy and hope they don't think too harshly of us. For the ones who haven't fixed their status, it's their loss. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-28 21:54:24 |
| #12 Bruce, I adopted two children from overseas and the INS put me through hell on the second adoption because my daughter didn't have a "satisfactory" birth certificate. Hell, she barely even had food for her first three years, let alone paperwork! Even though she was a ward of the state and legally released to me by the state, the INS dug its heels in. I persisted through months and months of INS bungling that brought me to tears more than once. But I persisted -- and eventually won. I'm not convinced that all these folks lined up at the Canadian border persisted to do the right thing. Many of them simply took advantage of disappearing into the melting pot rather than taking the risk of seeking legality. For folks like your clients I have sympathy. For the slackers I do not. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-03-28 21:40:17 |
| #11 I would have to say that.. based on the experience of a co-worker who moved here from England for the purpose of marriage... What Bruce says seems entirely plausible to me. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-03-28 19:55:28 |
| #10 Steve, Thanks for your civil comment. I have the unusual distinction of having been kicked off a right-winger web site for being too liberal, and off a left-winger site for being too conservative, and I always hope for civility. I have the misfortune to be an immigration lawyer, and the vast majority of my clients are legal immigrants or visitors. There is a fundamental flaw in your response. You assume that it is within people's power to "regularize their status," as if it were like buying a pair of shoes. In fact, my clients are going to fantastic lengths to try to comply with the law and regularize their status, but often they are blocked by really incredible INS bungling. The government does not follow the law! For example, it has been black-and-white crystal-clear in the law for over 40 years that a person married to an American who has filed a proper petition for permanent resident (immigrant) status is in lawful status and entitled to work. Nonetheless, in the recent Special Registration sweeps of people from over 25 countries, thousands of law-abiding foreigners were humiliated, harrassed for hours, denied the right to legal counsel, handcuffed, locked up in holding cells in very cold weather with no shelter and packed in so tight some had trouble breathing, then transported to state prisons and put in with the rapists and murderers for days or weeks--and then eventually released, with no apology. Do you get that? These are legal immigrants. With no criminal record. Not terrorists. Many of them are Christians and people who got asylum in the United States because they were fleeing tyranny overseas. They have American wives and children and employers and patients and neighbors. That is why so many people are so scared. I'm not talking about isolated incidents. These abuses number over 1000 in the past three months. |
| Posted by: Bruce Hake 2003-03-28 19:26:00 |
| #9 Okay, Bruce, we're a little over the top here (on Rantburg every day is little over the top), but consider: if you were in the country on an overstayed tourist visa, married to an American with American children, don't you think the onus would be on you to get your status regularized ASAP? Most of the Pakistanis in this position are probably decent Joes. They should have seen immediately after 9/11 that the time to continue at loose ends with the law was over. And the Special Registration Program isn't onerous if you're a good person who's simply got a visa problem. No one here would defend the INS -- a more incompetent Federal agency would be hard to find. But the onus to have one's status regularized is on the individual. These guys didn't get it done. That's their problem. Hope they enjoy Canada. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-28 17:56:04 |
| #8 Some of these Pakistanis may indeed have flagrantly overstayed tourist visas and so forth. But what you guys don't understand is that very many of them are married to Americans, have American children and friends and neighbors, and they are technically out of status, despite heroic attempts to comply with the law, because of outrageous incompetence and inefficiency of the INS. The racist comments in this thread are unworthy of Americans. |
| Posted by: Bruce Hake 2003-03-28 17:30:32 |
| #7 Steve. If a Pakistani sells just the liquor license in Massachusetts, he'll go up there with enough money to buy Canada. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-03-28 16:04:18 |
| #6 Seriously, this is good news. The more illegals of all nationalities that go, the better off we are. These are "tourists", "students", etc. who deliberately broke federal law. This was a relatively easy country to get into legally, so what was their excuse? We've even had at least two amnesty programs for illegals in the past 25 years. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-03-28 15:14:49 |
| #5 Tu3031, it also means that there will be a surplus of liquor stores in the US for sale. And Shell stations. And 7-11's. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-28 13:23:50 |
| #4 As they are waiting to enter Oh! Canada! we could hire them to start building a fence on the boarder. (multi tasking) |
| Posted by: Darkmark 2003-03-28 11:16:19 |
| #3 Something tells me that the HUNDREDS that are leaving the country v/s the 100,000's coming forward, will be the ones deleted from the welfare rolls (rather than the payrolls). Ha ha, Canada has put themselves in a position to take these losers or eat crow. LOL! |
| Posted by: anon 2003-03-28 10:56:43 |
| #2 Of course you know that this now makes Canada a superpower in the convienience store industry. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-03-28 10:34:32 |
| #1 Bruce, I may set a record for civility by me (two in a row! :-) I'm a physician and I see some immigrants as part of my practice. Yes, the INS is massively incompetent. Yes, after 9/11 anyone from certain countries got hassled. I don't doubt your stories. For the example you offer (married to an American, filed petition for green card), those hassled should be banding together for a class-action suit. You're a lawyer, you've seen the examples set recently by the anti-rave stupidities in Houston and Racine, you know this can be done. For the legal immigrants, I have sympathy and hope they don't think too harshly of us. For the ones who haven't fixed their status, it's their loss. |
| Posted by: Steve White 3/28/2003 9:54:24 PM |