Jun 21 2007
Kennedy & Kerry Support A Military Family In Need
Compassionate Conservatives. The label was meant to remind people that tough love is not without a heart and the government will not be used to brow beat people when they are down. We cannot blindly follow laws because laws do not fit every situation and many laws need to be fixed. Slavery was once legal. Women not being allowed to vote was once the law of the land. We adapt laws to make them just. Sacrificing for one’s country is the most amazing gift a person can give. And it should not go unnoticed.
Sadly, some amnesty hypochondriacs are so obsessed with the rule of law they forget that laws are meant to underpin human societies – not take humanity out of society. Laws are meant to make sure people do not impinge on people’s rights to live free. We all impact each other. We all effect each other. So the laws need to make sure we do not go outside some reasonable bounds of interaction, not eliminate them all together. That is impossible (and why the liberal ‘rights-think’ never works). Two liberal Senators are doing what GOP senators are doing. They are recognizing that a family has sacrificed to protect our rights, but instead – in the face of a blind and screwed up law – is potentially being severely punished for supposedly attacking our rights.
In May 2006, she received a reprieve — US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agreed to halt the proceedings after her husband had been sent to Iraq. Last month, Jimenez and two other soldiers were abducted by Sunni insurgents. One of the men was found dead, and the insurgent group claimed to have killed Jimenez and the third soldier. The two have not been found, though their Army IDs were discovered last week.
With Hiraldo’s status still unresolved, Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy have called on the Department of Homeland Security to let her stay.
“What’s changed in the last year in Yaderlin’s case is the status of her husband, which tragically could jeopardize her already uncertain status,” said Kerry, who believes she should be allowed to stay permanently and sent a letter on her behalf yesterday. “That shouldn’t be acceptable to a compassionate government.”
Kerry is right. And this woman is not the evil horde the amnesty hypochondriacs always bray about. And it is clear now that the GOP has probably not only lost its governing majority over the immigration debate, it has clearly lost its soul. When a life is given in the service of this country, that trumps any missing paperwork for the widow of that fallen hero. Thank you Senators Kerry and Kennedy for remembering laws are meant to help human society. Punishments are meant to guide people away from destructive activities. This is not the situation for punishment. The loss of a husband is punishment enough a million times over.
Update: Well, sanity as taken over as this young women will not be deported, though I am sure there are plenty of cruel and cold amnesty hypochondriacs willing to pull an Elian Gonzales move on her right now (at least one of my readers proved the amnesty hypochondriacs are capable of such beliefs):
The wife of a soldier missing in Iraq no longer faces deportation, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin, whom he married in 2004, Boston’s WBZ-TV reported.
…
An immigration judge put a temporary stop to the proceedings since Alex Jimenez was reported missing. The soldier’s wife is living with family members in Pennsylvania, the station reported.
The role reversal on this has been stunning. With Elian Gonzales we had an illegal alien coming into the country and the right abhored the militaristic tactics to kidnap the boy and send back to Cuba. But now I will not be surprised to see far right wingers calling for this woman to be marched to the border since she ‘broke the law’.
This incident reiterates the brain-dead nature of all bureaucracies. And you can square or cube it when it comes to USCIS.
Well frankly AJ, I’m appalled that Kennedy & Kerry had to do this!
The Senior Military Officer in her husband’s chain of command SHOULD’VE been doing this, before it even became a News story, frankly!
I’m appalled that no Colonel, or General, or Service Chief, or even Sec Def, appraised of this, and didn’t do this of their own volition; it’s unpardonable as far as I’m concerned!
amnesty hypochondriacs
Aj, we are Border Security Hypochondriacs.
As my friend at work said yesterday: ( a 10 year Navy Vet, and Grassfire Member)
When I was in the Navy, if I wanted to marry a foreign national, I had to put in a request to be allowed to marry,
and wait for my future wife to have a thorough backround check performed. I wonder if this guy did the same, or if its even required anymore. If so, did he do it the right way, or just decide which laws he wanted to follow and which he didn’t feel like following?
Anyone else out there a Military Vet who had a similar experiance?
I figured out by 2003 that Compasionate Conservative means Big Spender with Tax Cuts.
Did anyone notice the new Zogby Poll? An overwelming Majority of 3% of the American People think Congress is doing a good Job on Immigration. And an overwhelming 9% think Bush is too.
Mac Ranger and Neal Boortz are talking about it, amoung others.
T.B.:
The number of workers exposed to tuberculosis at a Greenville, S.C., chicken plant has grown to 131, but state health officials cautioned Tuesday only one is suspected of having an active form of the infectious disease.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control began testing employees at the House of Raeford Farms plant late last month after the agency was told about the infected worker. So far, 286 employees who have been in contact with the worker have been tested.
The percentage of positive cases is believed to be high because many of the plant’s employees come from other countries where the disease may be more prevalent, said agency spokesman Thom Berry.
Translation: Illegal aliens. Or, as President Bush calls them, “newcomers.†Or, as Harry Reid calls them, “undocumented Americans.†Whatever you call them, they are people who have not been screened for infectious disease before entering the country. The Charlotte Observer reports that “more than 60 percent of line workers in the chicken industry are Hispanic. And experts say most of the workers probably entered the U.S. already infected.â€
While not considered an immediate threat to Greenville residents, the number of infected workers reflects a concern about a growing health threat: immigrants increasingly carrying TB to the U.S.
“It’s become more of an imported disease,†said Dr. Jason Stout, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University who serves as one of North Carolina’s tuberculosis consultants.
House of Raeford employs about 650 workers at its Greenville plant who process chicken for stores and fast-food restaurants. Many of the workers live in small neighborhoods surrounding the plant.
Foreign-born residents accounted for 55 percent of TB cases nationwide in 2005 — the last year for which statistics were available. The greatest number of foreign born cases, 25 percent, or 1,942 cases, came from Mexico, followed by the Philippines, Vietnam, and India. In 1993, foreign-born residents made up 29 percent of reported TB cases.
Every year, thousands of illegal immigrants come to the Carolinas to work in poultry, construction and other industries. But undocumented workers are not the only ones entering the United States without being tested for TB. While refugees receive the tests, many immigrants traveling on tourist, business and student visas do not, according to experts.
“That is a major problem,†said Carol Pozsik, CEO of the National TB Controllers Association…
As a former Tough Love group leader, AJ is misleading that Tough Love also includes compassion. Tough Love requires setting the rules and sticking by them, no exceptions. Exceptions are viewed as excuses to setting parimeters. Tough Love is telling a loved one “you either live by the rules, or you leave”.
LOL! Ro5, There is “stubborn” and “closed minded” out there too -which has nothing to do with campassion. More like obsession.
So, AJ, under your rules, a parent who has a kid that consistantly comes in late and refuses to follow the rules, in Tough Love, you would consider those parents “stubborn” and “closed minded” when the locked the doors and refused to allow entry to the wayward teenager when the kid continued to come home past the time set by parents.
You are right that Tough Love parents have to be stubborn and closed minded. They have to put their emotions behind them and do what they feel is best for the child and that child’s future. They understand that there is punishment for violating house rules and that rewarding bad behavior acheives nothing. It is hard. When parents make the decision to let a kid stay in jail that has been busted for drugs, it hurts. When parents don’t fight a school’s decision to put a kid in alternative classes because the kid is constantly fighting at school, it hurts. When they lock their 15 year old daughter out because she keeps coming home at 3 in the morning, knowing she is outside crying and sitting on the porch in the dark, it hurts.
Tough Love is not obsession with rules; it is teaching children that everywhere they go in life; school, job; there are rules that they must follow to advance in life and become productive adults.
Sometimes I wonder what Bushes aides are doing. They should have presented the case to Bush to pardon her as soon as this broke assuming they knew about it. It should be pointed out that her lawyer sent a letter to Sen Clinton last March on this and never got a response. That will be lost in all this.
This can not come at a worse time especially as we lost 14 guys in Iraq today and it will get worse in the next two months as we enter the endgame with AG. Thisis a timebomb waiting to go off and it needs to be defused now
Jh
Louisiana
The lede “Kennedy and Kerry Support A Military Family In Need” shows the leanings of the author of this blog.
Why wasn’t the lede “Kennedy and Kerry Support An Illegal Immigrant”?
Are we to expect that the next time a drug dealer gets busted that has a family member in the military the lede will be “Kennedy and Kerry Support Family With Legal Needs”?
R05,
Thanks for pointing out the distinction – one I am proud to accept. Because military service and sacrifice trumps everything. You do know military families many times get “AMNESTY” for breaking laws, like late submission of taxes!
LOL! Yep, I ain’t no bitter amnesty hypochondriac!
Exception needed and noted. I’m just surprised…really…considering the constant drone that we currently do not have laws to deport people here illegally, that we cannot find people here illegally (without this new bill), that they were able to even “find” her…much less that she might be in any danger of being deported.
I’m shocked…really.
LSU: yep, my fear as well. We could be beaten to a bloody pulp with this story… and I’m afraid rightly so. At the end of Brit Hume’s report on Jimenez he stated: The Army is assisting Mrs. Jimenez & child, and will continue to do so regardless of her legal status. So that to me indicates authorities are acting with common sense and compassion behind the scenes, even if the situation appears to be in limbo, bureaucracy wise. Still, points to K & K for recognizing the oppty and racing to the microphones to get in front of this train wreck… though I doubt they even had to break a geriatric senatorial walking pace.
Retire: your wretched comments and “Parallax View” of our nation show exactly why and how we’ll take the hit.
Great news, and might be a “save” that puts the matter to rest:
[SNIP] the deportation case was closed in May 2006, and there are no plans to reopen it, said Jamie Zuieback, a homeland security spokeswoman.
“There is no move to deport her,” Zuieback said. “We, like all Americans, hope for Spec. Jimenez’s safe return.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/21/2007-06-21_feds_wife_of_missing_iraq_hero_wont_be_d-2.html?ref=nl&nltr_ct=1&nltr_id=Feds:
AJ, you say rules are relaxed for military families like filing income taxes. That is true if one of the joint filers is deployed. But it doesn NOT exclude them from filing their taxes completely.
If serving your nation trumps everything, AJ, do we now give a pass to military personell that breaks the law, like those at Abu Ghraib or the military personell that drives drunk or rapes a woman?
If it “trumps” everything, that would then be the case.
Of course, neither the host or the media actually told us the facts of the case. Reading the agenda driven sob story I understand that the spouse in question, Yaderlin Jimenez, apparently entered the U.S. illegaly in 2001, intending to live in the U.S. illegally.
At some time she married Alex Jimenez, undoubtedly after section 245(i), the rolling amnesty had expired.
The first question is why didn’t she return to the Dominican Republic and apply for an immigrant visa. Apparently the two wanted to avoid adhearing to the law and the constitution that Alex had sworn to uphold.
The next question is if deportation was suspended in 2006, why is this an issue at all.
The next issue is that in cases like this what always happens is that the alien in question agrees to return to their home and apply, in the usual manner, for an immigrant visa based on their marriage to an U.S. citizen.
While the press wanted to frighten easily frighted weblog hosts with the alleged ten year bar to re-entry by those who have more than one year illegal presence, there is a waiver which is routinely give to spouses of U.S. citizens, unless they have other issues they have hidden from the laconic eyes of the mainstream media w and credulous blog hosts, such as drug use, criminal activity, prostitution, etc.
In the end, since deportation proceedings were suspended in 2006, this is clearly just a propoganda piece for amnesty. Just as the media always finds one illegal that speaks English and has U.S. citizen children who don’t speak Spanish in an effort to fool the readers into believing that all illegals are similarly situated.
This story is soley designed to aid the amnesty propoganda. If Jimenez had done things the right way, there would be no issues for the two communist senators to whine about.
Dc:
No one said there were no laws in place to deport people, it is the hardliners who drone about the unwillingness of the government to do its job and deport people, it seems they are mistaken.
The point has always been that the numbers overwhelm the system and the courts have watered down certain provisions. It was the right who chose to turn that into a full blown hysterical conspiracy theory.
The point in this story is that a young man gave his life for this country and it took a couple of Democrats to come to the aide of his widow while the likes of retire made a point of adding insult to injury.
I remember hearing a story long ago about a man in the Battle of the Bulge who got a notice from the IRS that he owed back taxes. Mail was slow because there was a war on and all, but he stuffed an envelope with almost worthless Belgium currency and sent it back to the IRS with a note saying: Come and get me the hell out here and I will be more than happy to go to jail.
That was the end of that. But I suppose that there would be people out there who would say that man was a criminal.
Retire, I do not want to be on your side. Really I don’t. The very fact that you could make such a statement considering what that young woman is going through tells me you have something wrong with you.
And AJ is correct to draw the comparison to the boy who was sent back to Cuba when Clinton was president. That boy’s mother was trying to enter the country illegally and yet when he was sent back to his father in Cuba the same people who are making such fools of themselves over the very idea of “shamnesty” were outraged that the boy did not stay here.
Hyprocrites.
If there is a specific perceived injustice under any system of law, there has always been the final out of lawmakers passing a bill for specific relief of a particular case.
There are many of these done each year.
Wow, here’s something curious!
IF, we accept at face value, AJ’s long running contention that “immigration hypochondriacs” are hurting the Republican party, tearing it apart is AJ’s contention, then support for the Republican’s, should continue to drop.
But….according to Rassmussen’s latest Poll; the Democrats, who once held a 14% lead over Republicans on the Immigration issue, have LOST support, and the Republicans have actually gained; to the point now, that it’s just a 5% spread!
Republicans gain on immigration
How does that fit into AJ’s take, I wonder?
Of course, there’s also that very inconvenient poll, conducted last month by that bastion of Rightwing “immigration hypochondriacs”; that ALWAYS oversamples Rightwing Republicans in it’s polls, the NYT/CBS Poll that states:
69% believe illegal immigrants should be prosecuted
Wow, did you people know that 69% of the WHOLE country, is “rightwing immigration hypochondriacs”??
Of course, I don’t even want to point out the 49% of the hard right “immigration hypochondriacs” who prefer NO BILL AT ALL! Ouch!
Hmmmmmmm…..
Sure combat, the man got killed in Iraq just to aid the comprehensive immigration reform people. You bet.