Illegal immigrants detained, then freed to work – CNN.com
This is an interesting piece of news from Washington State, where 28 people were jailed for working illegally in a car repair shop. The normal process for this would be to deport them back to their country of origin (Mexico), leaving parents with the awful decision of whether to leave their US-born children in the US or take them with them. However, the furor caused locally by the raid and the political sensitivity of the Obama Administration, which is currently in the midst of preparing to introduce immigration reform, led to the Homeland Security chief to order an investigation of the matter. Supporters of the raid claimed that there was nothing to “investigate” since the US Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers involved in the raid were simply upholding current law. Because this was the first such raid under the new Obama Administration–and because during his presidential campaign Obama had openly criticized immigration policy because of the frequent unintended result deportation had on families of mixed US and non-US citizen status– the end result for the people jailed was that they received visas to legally work in the United States! Is this a sign of changes to come in US immigration policy? Let us know what you think.