Angry New Yorker

Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly." - Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783

Archives


Links
Monday, December 06, 2004
 
HEY, BBC! Stay out of U.S. Immigration Issues!

A report by the BBC World Service' "Outlook" program last Friday left me, true to my title, pretty angry. The segment was described thus:

Families Separated by Deportation
The tough enforcement of US immigration laws has brought the number of people deported to record levels. The effect has been the break-up of more and more families as the law catches up with one parent while children born in the States are left behind. We hear from a mother now back in Honduras about the heart-breaking separation from her child in New York.

The BBC correspondent interviewed this mother summarily deported from the U.S. in 2004 -- AFTER COMING TO NEW YORK CITY ILLEGALLY IN 1994! What the report doesn't mention, but an astute listener discerns immediately, is that, despite being here for 10 years, she apparently doesn't speak English (or, alternatively, the BBC didn't want to be guilty of violating her "language rights" and so the interview was held completely in Spanish, with the interpreter giving us the gist in English of her tearful situation.) What the report also doesn't note is that while deportations may be at record levels, so is illegal immigration. And a tough approach like this, could persuade others like this "mother" to, perhaps, think twice before wading across the Rio Grande, or disappearing into the underground after landing at J.F.K.

The report is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/ram/outlook_fri.ram



posted by anonymous at 5:57 PM

Comments: Post a Comment
HOME
This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?