Thread: Immigration deal draws cautious optimism

Immigration deal draws cautious optimism

BY ALFONSO CHARDY
May 17, 2007

Immigrants and their advocates in South Florida Thursday reacted with cautious optimism to news of an immigration deal that would legalize millions of undocumented migrants in the United States.

''It's a ray of hope,'' said Verónica Ruiz, an undocumented Colombian who has been in hiding since Feb. 6, when immigration agents went to her home in Miami to detain her because she had been ordered deported.

``I want to see the details first to make sure I can qualify for this, and reunite with my family. The important thing for me is that it include some sort of pardon for people like me with deportation orders.''

The 31-year-old Colombian joined the ranks of more than half a million immigration fugitives nationwide after she refused to open the door when agents showed up to pick her up. Eventually, the agents left and she went underground.

Immigrant rights advocates said they viewed the compromise as a good starting point -- but voiced concerns about what they called excessive fines and the length of time immigrants might have to wait to qualify for residence.

''The compromise is an indication that they are finally serious about comprehensive immigration reform,'' said Randolph McGrorty, executive director of the Archdiocese of Miami's Catholic Charities Legal Services.

``My hope is that this is the beginning of a serious dialogue, not the end of the dialogue, because in order to help the millions of good people contributing to our community the details have to be fixed.''

McGrorty and Cheryl Little, executive director of Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, said the proposed $5,000 fine is excessive.

''Many of our clients work two or three jobs just to survive and under the terms of this agreement they wouldn't be able to afford to live the American dream,'' said Little, who said the compromise was a step forward.

''We were begining to lose hope,'' she added. ``So we are relieved to see some forward movement on this.''

Steven Forester, senior policy advocate for Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami or Haitian Women of Miami, Inc., said the details in the compromise are what immigration advocates want to see.

''It's good something has been introduced to start the debate going,'' he said, adding: ``We'll need to look at the bill. The devil is in the details, which require examining.''

José Lagos, head of Honduran Unity, urged senators to approve a bill that would contain ''reasonable conditions'' for undocumented immigrants to meet.

Florida ranks third in the nation in the number of undocumented immigrants, according to a fact sheet released last year by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C.

According to the fact sheet, there are between 800,000 and 950,000 undocumented foreign nationals living in Florida.

The leading states are California, with up to 2.7 million, and Texas, with about 1.6 million, according to the fact sheet.

Overall, there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to various estimates.

The Office of Immigration Statistics, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, recently released slightly lower estimates for the undocumented population.

A report from that office released in August estimated the number of undocumented immigrants at 10.5 million, with about 850,000 in Florida.

According to the official estimate, Mexicans make up the largest number of unauthorized migrants with nearly six million of them in the country.

Other large numbers of undocumented migrants come from El Salvador, Guatemala, India, China and Brazil.

http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/110272.html

I'm tired of hearing about their wants or their dreams, what about our kids and our grandkids?

Once the Dems get their hands on these people we will be a Socialist country and the biggest welfare dept. in the whole damn world!

You got that right Moosetracks

biggest welfare dept. in the whole damn world!

We're not very far from that... acording to a colunm by Samuelson from
Newsweek, social services account for 60+% of annual federal goverment budget...
in the 50's, it was about 22%...

My state of California is toast.