Thread: Recent raids drive (Illegal) immigrant families to passport scramble

Recent raids drive (Illegal) immigrant families to passport scramble
by The Texas Tribune
Wednesday, March 1st 2017



A Travis County constable checks the time outside the county passport office. The office opens at 8 a.m., but some families start lining up as early as 5 a.m. (Marjorie Kamys Cotera via the Texas Tribune)

by Mariana Alfaro | The Texas Tribune

Carlos Bernal and his wife woke up their children, gathered their documents and drove to the Travis County passport office before dawn Monday. They were first in line at 5 a.m., three hours before the office opened.
“We’re here to get our kids passports, in case they kick us out,” Bernal said in his native Spanish.

His children, ages 14, 13 and 6, are U.S. citizens. He and his wife are not. Because of recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, he said, they have to be ready to pack up and leave the country for Mexico.

A recent flurry of ICE apprehensions around the country has sent undocumented immigrants from various countries running to passport offices and their native countries' consulates for documentation they pray they won't need.

At the Salvadoran consulate in Dallas, Consul General Jose Mario Mejía Barrera said his office has seen a 25 percent increase in passport applications and child registries in the past month. Mejía Barrera's consulate serves around 150,000 Salvadorans who live in North Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

“There's uncertainty and worry among the community. People are realizing they have to file the right paperwork,” Mejía Barrera said. “Children who are born here, with Salvadoran moms or dads, are being registered so they have dual citizenship. Couples are registering their marriages so that they're valid in El Salvador.”

At the Mexican consulate in Austin, Consul General Carlos Gonzalez Gutiérrez said his office has seen an uptick in the number of applications for passports and birth certificates since the November presidential election. Last month’s ICE activity in Austin scared immigrants more, he said, because non-criminal immigrants were detained — a change from Obama-era policies.

On Friday, Gonzalez Gutiérrez's consulate will hold its first-ever custody session to help undocumented Mexicans understand how guardianship works in case they have to leave their children with a documented family member or friend. Gonzalez Gutiérrez said immigrants also ask the consulate about property rights, wondering if the U.S. government can confiscate their homes.

“Their questions show the state of anxiety that the community is in,” said Gonzalez Gutiérrez, whose office oversees nearly 450,000 people of Mexican origin in Central Texas. “Up until a few months ago, these questions were unimaginable.”

Two weeks ago, ICE arrested dozens of undocumented immigrants across the nation in what they said was a routine action. But the immigrant community was already on edge because of rising anti-immigrant rhetoric during the presidential campaign, and the ICE actions sent many undocumented families into a panic.

Behind the Bernals at the Austin passport office, the majority of the line was made up of immigrant families clutching their children's birth certificates; they waited several hours before being allowed inside the passport center.

For some families, this was the first of two passport lines they had to navigate to ensure their children are correctly documented.

Romina, a Mexican woman who has lived in Austin for 10 years, said she was going to get Mexican passports for her U.S.-born children after they secured their American passports. This is part of her emergency plan, she said, in case she or her husband are deported. Because she's an undocumented immigrant, she asked to be identified only by her first name.

“Yes, there are some bad immigrants," she said, "but there are so many more good immigrants who pay taxes. I pay taxes.”

Nancy Howell, manager of Travis County's passport program, said her office normally serves slightly more than 100 applicants a day. In the past couple of weeks, however, they’ve been serving more than 200, with most lining up outside early in the morning. Most days, she said, her office has to tell some families to come back the next day when the office closes.

On average, she said, it takes between 15 and 30 minutes to serve each family. The office has five to six staffers, but only two are fluent Spanish speakers. Howell said it is the customer’s responsibility to bring a translator.
“We could probably do more if we had more clerks," she said.

Outside, Anallely Aviles observed her kids, 6 and 4, running around, weary from waiting. Young children are as scared as the adults about the increased deportations, she said.

“They know already because they hear it from us or they hear it in school,” she said in Spanish. “If ICE comes to the door, they know they don’t have to open it and should go hide in the room and try to make no noise.”

http://valleycentral.com/news/texas/...sport-scramble

These people are just parasites. They feed on everything, abuse everything, exploit everything. It took me 45 minutes in a post office line to pick up a parcel, because illegal aliens were taking up the second clerk station scheduling this kids to get US passports. Here the Post Office does passports. The adults were pygmies, not one of them over 4 feet tall. They spoke Spanish but I have no clue what country they were from. Some country with very small people.

If the children are minors how do they get American passports if the parents are illegal aliens, I do not get it.

If the children were born in the US and have a state birth certificate, our stupid government gives the children born here a US passport. They're called anchor babies.

Anchor babies are not going anywhere, they are being given US passports, reassuring their status as US citizens - if they do leave with their parents now they can always come back and have entitlements to bring the nuclear family. Everything with these illegals has just gone too far and for too long to rectify save the future if birthright citizenship is clarified/rectified, nuclear family, chain migration removed and limited to spouse & children instead of aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents - probably includes nieces and nephews too. All the seniors they bring get SSI monthly payments and medicaid. The goal of a better class of immigrants is great but there are millions of anchor babies and growing everyday on our monies. Anchor babies will scream bloody murder and have lawyers too if you try and deny them citizenship rights and everything that goes along with it - they will get all the privileges they want and then some. Our gov't did this to us - it was their agenda otherwise it would not have happened.

I don't get it..... all these illegal aliens spat on our laws and did not give a shit about our document requirements or just played dumb.

It's interesting that they clearly understand what they need to legally re-enter there home country with there kids and stand in line for hours to get passports So they are legally following the immigration laws of there home country.

I'm confused..... do the immigration laws of other nations make them racist?

These people are gypsy con artists. They know all the laws and all the ways to cheat them and get away with it.

Originally Posted by Judy

These people are just parasites. They feed on everything, abuse everything, exploit everything. It took me 45 minutes in a post office line to pick up a parcel, because illegal aliens were taking up the second clerk station scheduling this kids to get US passports. Here the Post Office does passports. The adults were pygmies, not one of them over 4 feet tall. They spoke Spanish but I have no clue what country they were from. Some country with very small people.

Guatemalans are very short of stature as a rule.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Guatemalans are very short of stature as a rule.

All of South America and Mexico are short pygmies

I don't get it..... all these illegal aliens spat on our laws and did not give a shit about our document requirements or just played dumb.

Because they are sleezeballs and so is our gov't, gw/obama, and all politicans that allowed this to happen ..

the adults were pygmies, not one of them over 4 feet tall. They spoke Spanish but I have no clue what country they were from. Some country with very small people.

Those south of the US border are highly INBRED often resulting in physical and mental abnormalities/retardation/schizophrenia/violence..
Look at the brutal killing of "zoo kept hippo" in a GDamn "kitty pool", beaten to death in central america - one third of all salvadorans now live in US...and they have no mercy on our citizens either - GET THEM OUTTA HERE! GO BACK HOME WHERE YOU BELONG CENTRAL AMERICANS - YOU LACK PROPER CREDENTIALS AND CIVILITY TO BE NORTH OF THE BORDER!
Authorities investigate killing of hippo at El Salvador zoo

MARCOS ALEMAN
Associated PressFebruary 27, 2017


In this frame grab from video taken on March 10, 2014 and released by El Salvador's Canal 9, a hippopotamus named Gustavito is fed at the San Salvador Zoo in El Salvador. Zoo director Vladan Henriquez said at a news conference on Monday, Feb. 27, 2017 that the animal was covered with bruises and puncture wounds after apparently being attacked with metal bars, knives and rocks. The attack occurred on Tuesday night, Feb. 21, 2017. Zookeepers did not discover the hippo’s injuries until Thursday because he did not leave his pool, and he died late

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's widespread violence reached an unexpected corner with the brutal and fatal beating of the national zoo's beloved hippopotamus Gustavito.
Even among a population numbed by a staggering human death toll due to gang violence in recent years, the animal's death late Sunday stirred outrage.

Salvadorans mourned through social media and some left flowers at the gate of the zoo, which has been closed until further notice.

"Here we're used to seeing the dead every day," Martin Castillo, a street vendor in the capital's historic downtown, said Monday. "They kill us like flies, but this tops it all. They killed an animal that only entertained us."

Zoo director Vladan Henriquez said at a news conference that the hippo was covered with bruises and puncture wounds after apparently being attacked with metal bars, knives and rocks.
The attack occurred last week, sometime Tuesday night. But zookeepers did not discover the hippo's injuries until Thursday because he did not leave his pool. Gustavito died the injuries late Sunday.

Justice Minister Mauricio Ramirez Landaverde said an investigation had been opened.

El Salvador is one of the world's most violent countries, recording 5,278 homicides last year, or an average of 14 people killed per day. Most of the killings have been blamed on powerful street gangs.

Gustavito was born and raised in Guatemala, but was brought to El Salvador 13 years ago.
"We're angry," said Carmen Rogel, who often brings her grandson to the zoo. "We didn't know they had killed Gustavito and were surprised when we arrived and the gate was closed."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/authoriti...220917086.html