Sounds Familiar

My Local Net start-up page today had an article about Desiree Rogers, President Obama's White House social secretary and her responsibility or lack thereof for the recent gate crashing incident which allowed two people not on the guest list to attend and get close to the President.

Written by Jocelyn Noveckap, the article discussed Ms Rogers' many accomplishments and then stated, "But the turn of events is bewildering to Rogers' friends and associates, who say she's being misunderstood and unfairly targeted, and her accomplishments ignored. 'It's extraordinary to see someone's life's work mischaracterized in this way,' says John W. Rogers Jr., Desiree's former husband, with whom she remains close. 'I just don't understand it. She's working 12-15 hours a day, just trying to do a great job.' "

I couldn't help noticing that those are much the same words used by family, friends and acquaintances of immigrants when they are picked up and "detained" (put in prison indefinitely) by ICE. People who have worked hard and done a great job are suddenly, because of a problem with their documentation or because, though here legally, they have been picked up for a minor offense, finding themselves in prison doing hard time as ICE tries to strip them of their right to stay in this country.

Over and over you hear immigration detainees referred to as, "misunderstood and being unfairly targeted," as those of us who know them lament how horrible it is "to see someone's life's work mischaracterized in this way." It's pointed out that many of them were "working 12-15 hours a day, just trying to do a great job." Yup, that sure does sound awfully familiar.

Immigrants today are serving in our armed forces 30,000 strong. They fill jobs that American's don't want to or are not educated or experienced enough to do. They wipe our children's noses and engineer our oil drilling rigs. And yet a severely disabled, Vietnamese, Vietnam War Veteran with two grown US citizen children now sits in prison as our government tries to deport him back to Vietnam because he was picked up for driving without insurance in 1989. A frightening number of our most loyal military veterans now live outside this country, forever banished from the land they put their lives on the line for, forever separated from the families they love - for minor, non-violent offenses stemming from PTSD caused by their war service. Many adults who came here legally with their parents as small children and know no other country are sitting in prison or have already been deported for similar reasons and of course there are the ones we all hear about - hard working immigrant families who overstayed their visas or came here without documentation, many with American citizen children, who sit in prison or are deported and now live in Eastern Europe, Africa, Mexico, The Caribbean . . . because, though they worked hard and lived right, they were not here with the proper documentation and that is all that is seen . . . all that matters.

Let us hope that the Obama administration can learn from this experience and find it within their hearts to stand up for these hard working, dedicated people whose small mistake is far outweighed by their huge contributions to this country in the same way they are not standing up for the White House social secretary. It would be the honorable, fair thing to do. It's time to do it . . . past time.