And despite all that, she has been deported back to Poland, forced to take her young son with her, and leave her soon-to-be-citizen husband behind. The family is torn apart — and as you’ll see, it was all because of a broken system that simply fails to live up to what we Americans like to think is our dream, our way of life.

I didn’t learn that; there was nothing in that video that gave me any indication that Janina “played by the rules” at all. And neither did I find anything substantial on the linked website to support that statement either. And being both a decade-long immigration professional and being married to a green-card holder, I find it difficult to believe that Janina was deported for “checking off the wrong box on a form”, as another commenter alleged previously.
Is there anyone who can substantiate any of this? Because as much as I’d like to commisserate with this story, I strongly feel like I’m being taken for a ride.

Most Americans are descended from undocumented immigrants. The only documentation my original immigrant ancestors had was notations on a ship’s manifest. The fact is that every immigration control law ever passed in this country has been fueled by fear of the “other,” and usually based on race (the main exception would be the red scare immigration laws in the 1950s).

It wasn’t until 1965 that we fully de-racialized the immigration law, and every tightening of the law ever since has once again been fueled by hysteria over race and ethnicity.

The Asian community as well as the Catholic Church have long institutional memories about the motives behind US immigration law throughout our country’s history, and that’s why they are backing this effort.

as they claim, it’s unfair to the people who play by the rules and immigrate legally.

Actually, many of us who aren’t nativists or as you seem to think, bigots, believe that. I personally know someone from India who’s been trying to get here to rejoin her sister, aunt and uncle and can’t.

I’m glad you brought up that not all illegal immigrants are from Mexico. That may be what motivates some racists, but having lived in a neighborhood run over with illegal EAST European immigrants who turned every single-family home and apartment on my block into illegal boarding houses, I’m well aware that plenty of illegals are white.

Immigrants who break the immmigration laws are illegal immigrants. period. it’s more complicated than white vs. “brown”. Not everyone who’s “progressive” is in favor of illegal immigration.

After almost seven years of George I find it very difficult to understand the sympathies of those like Liberty Lee who believe Bush is anything more than a shallow and clueless person using immigration to assist his large campaign donors union busting efforts.

OK its a bit more complicated than that….but essentially????

LibertyLee @ 12

I’m FOR immigrants having a shot at the American Dream. It is my opinion that George W. Bush shares the Reagan vision of America as a “shining City on a Hill”. You may disagree with him. You may disagree with me. Does that make me a “creature”?

Anyone who agrees with the views of the lizard people currently running this government is, in my opinion, a creature…and not quite a fully sentient one either.

But aren’t we all God’s creatures?

james @ 11

Oh, geez, please don’t feed these creatures.

I’m FOR immigrants having a shot at the American Dream. It is my opinion that George W. Bush shares the Reagan vision of America as a “shining City on a Hill”. You may disagree with him. You may disagree with me. Does that make me a “creature”?

Anyone who agrees with the views of the lizard people currently running this government is, in my opinion, a creature…and not quite a fully sentient one either.