Immigration Laws

Proponents of Maryland's Dream Act allowing the children of undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates say it is wrong to "punish" an innocent child whose parents brought them to this country before their 16th birthday. An unlocked front door also offers opportunity. If a parent entered, removed a TV and took it home would you say the kids had a right to it? Of course not. These children, who have received many years of education in our exemplary school systems and total immersion in the language of international commerce, will have a tremendous advantage over their peers when they return to their own country.

It never ceases to amaze me how commentators such as Thomas F. Schaller purposely mix up the issue of today's illegal immigrants with the history of legal immigration ("Hostility toward recent immigrants a long U.S. tradition," July 11). Yes, there was anti-immigrant bias in our past, but the country has since learned that legal immigration is one of the engines that help drive the economy so that everyone has a chance to benefit from American capitalism. The people objecting to the current immigration policy are not against immigrants, as Mr. Schaller suggests when he asks "why is there so much consternation about the latest, Latino-dominated generation of American immigrants?"

WASHINGTON -- Senators agreed yesterday to briefly delay their debate on immigration reform, giving lawmakers time to work for greater consensus on an issue that has sparked a furor on Capitol Hill and around the country. With negotiations continuing behind the scenes, it remained unclear which of several competing proposals might gain momentum. The Senate, which initially had planned to begin its debate yesterday, could start its deliberations late today or tomorrow. Democrats and the chamber's Republican majority have agreed that discussions will focus first only on border security.

With each passing day, I regret more and more having voted for President Obama. One can't judge a book by its cover, nor can one judge a politician by his speeches, no matter how articulate. In August, Mr. Obama told the Justice Department to ignore immigration laws and not deport illegal immigrants. Earlier this year he instructed the department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court. On Dec. 4, CBS TV's "60 Minutes" aired a segment about the banks, mortgage lenders and other financial institutions responsible for the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, documenting how their cooking of the books in part caused today's economic crisis.

It is good news Maryland's population has grown by 480,000 ( "Maryland population grows by 480,000," Dec. 22). That's a sizeable jump and will mean more taxes for the state, more consumers to purchase goods and services and increased funding to our pension programs. However, there was no mention as to the legal status of the expanding Hispanic population. The Latinos make up about 7 percent of Maryland's population and now account for 40 percent of the state's growth since the last census was taken.

Well, who says you can't teach an old dog new (dirty) tricks. It seems The Sun has taken a tactic straight from the playbook of the Republican Party: use the tainted messenger to taint the message. By pointing out that former Congressman Tom Tancredo has a record of insensitive and harsh behavior ("Tea and insensitivity," Feb. 10) does not mean that one should not consider illegal immigration to be a problem or that those who want enforcement of laws are racist. In fact, many of us who want illegal immigration laws to be strictly enforced have our nation's interest and cohesiveness in mind.

When five law enforcement officers turned up on Walter Abbott's doorstep in Parkville barely two hours after he sent what prosecutors said was a threatening email to Gov. Martin O'Malley, his face turned ashen. It was as though he had seen a ghost, Sgt. Adam Stachurski, a member of the state police's Criminal Intelligence Section, told a jury in Baltimore County Circuit Court. "His hands went to his face, kind of in dismay. " Walter Abbott, a 47-year-old construction worker, stood trial Tuesday for the second time on charges of making a threat of bodily injury to a public official, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

Immigration reform advocates, including a leading voice from Maryland, pressed President Obama on Tuesday for a pathway to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, calling a bipartisan proposal under consideration in the U.S. Senate "unfair and not acceptable. " A group of eight senators -- including four Republicans and four Democrats -- unveiled the broad outlines of a plan last month that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain permanent residency and eventual citizenship only after tougher border restrictions are in place, a requirement for many Republicans.

Every month for the past three years, Jeanne Velez has convened a Latino community meeting with the same assertion: Baltimore City police officers are not immigration agents. The meetings, a partnership between Velez, a longtime activist in Baltimore's Hispanic community, and Southeast District commanders, serve to urge skittish new immigrants to shed their fear of the authorities, while educating them about public safety and victims' rights. It's a vastly different approach from the new policy of the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, which recently became the only law enforcement agency in Maryland to sign an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check immigration status when they make an arrest or respond to a call for service.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the San Jose Mercury News, which was published Friday.CALL US foolish if you will, but the logic behind the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's new policy extending anti-discrimination protection to undocumented workers seems . . . well, screwy.It just doesn't compute: A U.S. government agency is going to spend taxpayer dollars to protect people who have no right to be in the country in the first place from being exploited in the workplace. And all the while, that agency is going to refuse, as a matter of policy, to identify those people to the authorities charged with enforcing the immigration laws.