Dear Editor:
Like Mr. Skip Tollifson, I too retired after 27 years of government service
and saw then as I continue to see the injustice of the BCIS, BICE and BCBP
in
their everyday decisions.
I occasionally do immigration consulting for attorneys and experience the
arbitrary and capricious decisions of immigration officers that rest not on
what
the law allows, including discretionary authority, but on their fundamental
belief that they have the power to decide a person's fate and that of an
entire
family tree by the flick of the pen.
To give you an example, a gentleman married a woman from Mexico and adopted
her two teenage children. She is ineligible to file for adjustment because
an
immigration inspector at a border port decided that the woman was not
entitled
to enter and initiated expedited removal proceedings against her knowing
that
she was married to a US citizen.
A family cannot stay apart for long so she reenters the USA and filed prior
to 4/30/2001. They are invited to the Dallas office and she is immediately
arrested, the order of removal is reinstated and swiftly transported to
Mexico.
They thought that the interview was for the purpose of granting her
permanent
residence status. A year later, after contacting BCIS and petitioners
attorney (but without them responding to the requests made) she is
interviewed at
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico where her hopes are again severed without recourse
for 10
years and then she must request a waiver.
As a practice, and before going to her interview, the petitioner calls on
his
doctor to get a letter of his mental state and physical condition. The
outcome darkens his hopes. He learns that he has advanced cancer of the
liver and
colon. He is undergoing therapy and the doctor gives him six months with a
possibility of extra time with proper therapy.
Does immigration care? As before the split, it remains heartless, the
humanitarian parole is denied twice in Washington with the same canned
language. In
the meantime a man goes through chemo daily and once a month is
hospitalized
for five days straight, as he loses hope of ever seeing his wife again
before
his last breath.
I have always been a fair man and believed in the words of Commissioner
Meissner whose motto was 'enforcement with compassion'. I was once
investigated
because I responded to the people's needs as if they were my own. I was
accused
of giving preferential treatment to Hispanics. I was asked why I made the
decisions I made and I told them that because the issues presented were in
the
gray area of the law and because the law did not say that I couldn't.
Mr. Tollifson hits the nail on the head when he says the DHS is still
plagued
by many incompetent managers and officers who remain in authority and
nothing
will change. If anything, things have gotten worse and the Bureau appear to
be losing respect. This is not to say that there aren't a great number of
good
employees within the aforementioned Bureaus. I know many but they are not
the decision makers. It seems that now everyone points to the top as an
excuse
not to do the right thing.
The government is separating families. I see it daily. Families told that a wife or husband, father or
mother, brother or sister, son or daughter has been banned for 10 years or life
because of one or all of the following:
Illegal presence of over 1 year and attempted reentry, reentry after deportation, false claim to US citizenship.
Was this the intent of Congress? How would our lawmakers feel if they were
suddenly told that they could not see their family for ten years or for life; a
family begun one or 20 years before? Is this fair? Is this a law that we
the
people of this country want? I never did and I wouldn't wish it on my
worst
enemy. How can we change this attitude? What can be done to eliminate
these
obstacles against the masses of aliens living desperately apart or risking
their
lives to get back to their loved ones?
Who has the answer?
Victor W. Johnston
(INS OIC retired 2000)
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