8/9/2009


John D. Forester Jr.: Plan to send detainees to Berks raises ire
The ICE people cometh, and we don't like it.

You didn't have to wait for the letters and comments to start coming in to guess what people in Berks County were thinking about the federal government's decision to shut down a 512-bed immigration holding facility in Texas and dump its residents in Berks County.

Let's ignore that this was an ill-conceived plan at best.

After all, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency announced the move without asking officials at the Berks County Family Shelter Care Facility - the old Berks Heim - if they could accommodate an infusion of federal detainees.

They can't. The 84-bed family shelter is full of detainees awaiting hearings.

Could we say the Obama administration acted stupidly?

Well, it apparently doesn't matter to ICE. Its officials say they have a backup plan to release the detainees into the community, under some sort of supervision of course.

Well, that proposal has lit some short fuses in Berks.

I've heard and read people commenting that the detainees should be locked up, summarily sent back where they came from or even set adrift.

What the locals are overlooking is that not all the detainees are illegal aliens, at least not until a court says they are.

Most are awaiting hearings to see whether they can stay here legally or awaiting decisions in cases that were already heard.

Meanwhile the federal government is saying these people should not be treated as criminals but as presumably law-abiding civilians petitioning a civil court for citizenship or for protection from abusive persecution in their old countries.

Yes, some have been determined to be here illegally and are awaiting deportation. But the others are much like the ancestors of the Berks-born descendants of the Welsh, the Germans, the Irish, Italian and Greek immigrants who were detained on Ellis Island while the government determined their status.

We Americans like to be proud of our status as a melting pot and the safe harbor for those yearning to be free. But truth be told, native-born Americans didn't like newcomers back then.

Apparently we still don't.

Contact John D. Forester Jr.: jforester@readingeagle.com.



http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=151780