The Immigration Lawyer’s Blog

You may remember Rhodes Island Governor Don Carcieri from my previous blog posts ACLU Sues Rhodes Island Governor over E-Verify Program and Rhodes Island Governor Carcieri Wins: Can Force State Employers to Implement Federal E-Verify Program.

He and his state are in the news again. The Providence Journal reports that a group of 500 attended a Dominican-American Roundtable that was mainly dedicated to criticizing Governor Carcieri’s policies:

“The other side is louder … but the law is on our side,” said John Amaya, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. He said that 63 non-federal entities, such as local sheriffs and police departments, have moved to crack down on illegal immigration recently. His group has sued to block some of them.

The City of Farmer Branch, Texas, for example, last year passed a law requiring prospective apartment renters to prove citizenship. A judge has temporarily blocked the requirement, pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Amaya’s organization and the American Civil Liberties Union.

And, of course, there was the obligatory race card:

“State and local authorities aren’t fit to enforce immigration laws,” Amaya said. “They’re targeting people who look and sound brown.”

The Governor’s office responded through its spokeswoman, Amy Kempe:

The governor implemented an executive order in March largely because national lawmakers failed to deal with the issue. Rhodes Island is one of a growing number of states that are cracking down on illegal immigration. Absent a national policy on immigration, the governor’s executive order was created to follow the existing immigration laws.

This, I suppose, makes Mr. Carcieri a bigot, a racist and a xenophobe.

Once again, it baffles me that the pro-amnesty/pro-open border/pro-path-to-citizenship crowd believes it will gain converts this way. Then again, maybe they have a different agenda: Frighten legal Hispanic immigrants (i.e. “they don’t oppose illegals because they are illegal, they just hate brown-skinned people”) into supporting their cause.

Lest I, too, get labeled a vile, hate-mongering bigot, I will reiterate my position here:

• I favor legal immigration. We need to quadruple the H-1B cap to allow more skilled workers to enter and stay in the country, for instance.
• Emigration by the best and the brightest from every region of the world is what has made America great and will make it even greater in the future.
• Skin color, ethnicity, religion are irrelevant. Ambition, intelligence and moral character (demonstrated in part by a respect for the rule of law) should be our standards of entry.

And here is my pledge:

I will continue as I have for the past sixteen years to represent those foreign born individuals who wish to legally enter the United States. If they are currently here illegally and the law provides for a mechanism by which they can turn that illegal status into a legal status, I will proudly take their case and vigorously represent them to the full extent (and benefit) of the law.

Sadly, for some people, that’s simply not enough.

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