Nelson Pinos Wins Stay Of Deportation

This is wonderful news. Congratulations to Nelson and all of the people who supported him. He was a victim of hatred. Hopefully, the USA is becoming a more empathetic place.

Free Nelson!!!! Such an amazing struggle, fight, and victory. Congratulations Nelson and I couldn't be more happy for you.

The argument for letting long-term illegal residents stay essentially says people will be rewarded for extended violation of our immigration laws. It makes no sense to me. Most of those here illegally have no legitimate basis for asylum. They came to the US for economic reasons, not because of political or ethnic persecution. Some came for free medical care, the type of immigrant our public charge law was specifically designed to exclude. As wealthy as the US is, open borders and unrestricted immigration would overwhelm our economy. The great socialist democracies of Europe, plus Canada and Oz all have far more restrictive immigration policies than ours. They could not afford their generous social policies with open borders.

So glad Nelson will get to breathe a little easier for a while!! Congratulations to him and his family!

Baffled by the lack of humanity (and inaccurate information!) propagated by 1644 and other anti-immigrant individuals. The US really does have enough resources for everybody, especially when one considers that people who get social assistance when they need it tend to be upwardly mobile later in their lives. In general, we do a pretty poor job of giving people the things that they need. Undocumented immigrants are eligible for very few social services even though they pay taxes.

If we really did give "free medical care" to undocumented immigrants, we would all benefit from that. When people are afraid to go to the doctor, they can't get doctor's notes to get off work and wind up sickening their co-workers.

Articles like this give me great hope, and with that hope, I pray that someday Nelson Pinos will be able to soon live in this country as a legal, free human being.

Articles like this also bring to mind a very beautiful poem, which I seem to recall parts of having a prominent place on Lady Liberty in NY Harbor:


The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus - 1849-1887

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

1644, there are more than 10 million people in the country illegally. There is no way to deport all, or even most, of them without the U.S. becoming a totalitarian state and seriously damaging the economy. (If employers are having a tough time filling jobs now, imagine what would happen if the undocumented disappeared.) I have no problem deporting immigrants who are convicted of felonies after their arrival, but Mr.Pinos is not in this category.

1644- the restaurant and hospitality industries and the farming industries are just some of the jobs fields that are desperately searching for workers because American citizens don't want to work those jobs because of their hard labor, dangerous or unpleasant conditions, poor hours, lack of retirement benefits, lack of upward mobility, and lack of healthcare. The myth that immigrants will take all our jobs is false. Traditionally immigrants have often started working in our country taking the jobs that would otherwise go unfilled. A great many of our ancestors came here fleeing poverty, as well as religious and political oppression, and to try to create a better life for themselves and their families.
America needs to pass a comprehensive immigration plan and guest worker program with a path to citizenship. Congress hasn't passed any meaningful legislation to address the current immigration situation and the use of xenophobia and racism to raise fears about immigrants has been rampant in the media and in government policies. The vast majority of the people who want to come here are incredibly brave, hard working, family oriented, and good people who just want to be able to live and work here without fear or persecution or starvation and to strive to create a better life for their loved ones and they far outweigh in numbers the handful of bad actors who make headlines.

I agree with Kevin McCarthy on this. Our immigration laws have been broken and the crowds cheer? What other US laws do you want to break? This is madness.

@Kevin McCarthy et al.: According to a 2018 study/report by Yale and MIT (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201193), the number of illegal immigrants could be as low as 16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million. The 10-11 million number so often used as an indicator of how many illegal immigrants are in the U.S. is tremendously outdated. Does this individual's ability to "beat" the system have tremendous negative ramifications for the totality of the huge illegal immigrant problem the U.S. faces, probably not. But, multiply this by the millions of other individual illegal immigrants who are also here, and without the real worry of being deported and I'd say we do have a real problem. Felons or not, laws are supposed to be upheld. If we need more individuals to successfully help "bolster" and drive our economy forward, then we need to fix the stupid, broken, and dangerously politicized immigration system once and for all.

Steve - Nelson was not a victim of anything. He is a law breaker and the final disposition of his lawlessness was given a temporary hiatus.

Heather - Repeating the false claim that illegal immigrants do jobs legal immigrants and other low skill workers won't do is not a defense for continued law breaking. Living an exemplary life on the lamb is also not a defense. We have a guest worker program already and employers are welcome to use it to import workers they otherwise can't find.
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Recover - Illegal immigration is not a matter of the USA having resources. We have laws. Follow them. Canada has harsher immigration laws than we do. We do not need to have open borders, take in whoever comes, and then give them welfare - some want to allow them to vote. It's also not our responsibility to provide free healthcare either. This has nothing to do with humanity - trying to mask illegal behavior with "humanity" just doesn't work.

What has Mr Pinos done during this time to change his status from un-documented to documented? What will he do during the 'reprieve' to become documented?

Noteworthy- our current guest worker program and immigration system has been severely restricted, is broken, and isn't working to fill our country's needs. I'm not arguing for illegal immigration, I'm arguing for a comprehensive immigration reform that isn't xenophobic, racist, classist or biased against people for simply their circumstances or who they are. I'm also arguing for a guest worker program that meets our country's needs for workers with a path to citizenship and that protects immigrants and guest workers from exploitation or other abuses commonly experienced by the undocumented.
It's way past time for our country to overhaul our immigration and asylum and guest worker programs.

I am the son of legal immigrants. My mother is Ecuadorian and my late father was Costa Rican. I was born in the United States, and lived there until the age of 41, when I took advantage of my dual-citizenship status and moved to Ecuador. I have to say I am laughing out loud at the people here who 1) believe that lawbreakers should be rewarded for breaking the law and 2) are convinced that living in Ecuador is a fate worse than death. Ironically, for the last ten years Ecuador has been aggressively promoted as a retirement paradise for American retirees, many of whom are ideologically to the left and go out of their way to insist that Ecuadorian culture is superior to American culture.

Alex Rose, I said "more than 10 million". Last time I checked, 16.5 million is more than 10 million. And you are inadvertently strengthening my argument. Let's say there are 16.5 million people here illegally. How many federal judges do we have to hold deportation hearings? Where will we house the migrants while they are awaiting their hearings? Unlike some progressives, I'm OK with deporting immigrants who have committed serious crimes after entering the country illegally. But there are millions of immigrants who have broken no laws since their arrival, paid their taxes, and contributed to society.

Kevin M---- they broke no laws since they got here??? They got here by breaking the law and every day that they stay and use services , they break the law. What other laws do you think are OK to break? You can't pick and choose the laws you like and disregard the rest.

Dear Condor Boy--- please tell more about your present life in Ecuador!!!

Kevin: Everyday some ones who entered illegally remains here, they are breaking our laws. So, too, with the many who enter legally but work illegally.

Gallup has said there are 160 million people who want to move to the USA. As romantic as the Lazurus poem is, we no longer have vast tracts of land we want cleansed of Indians, nor do we have the need for cheap labor for mines and mills. The current labor shortage is artificially created through printed piles of money to pay people not to work. If not for the masses of illegal workers here, the market dictate better pay and working conditions for restaurant workers, we might have fewer, more expensive restaurants, but we would still have some. (Traveling in Oz, I realized there was no casual dining segment as we no it: comparable food was counter, not table service. Sometimes customers were given their now raw food to cook.)

CondorBoy: Yes, I have some friends who moved from New Haven to Guatemala. Of course, many countries are wonderful if one has money, in part because so many do not. I haven't been to Ecuador, but there are millions of severely impoverished folks in your rival, Peru. Some places, people a third of their daily income on a bucket of potable water. The elites of Miraflores scheme to dispossess the peasants of ancestral lands to clear the way for giant, environment destroying silver, gold, and lithium mines. Most ironic are the lithium mines, so we in the USA can think we are saving the planet by moving from fossil fuels, when we are creating environmental disasters and harming indigenous peoples.

@Kevin McCarthy: Sorry, "but more than 10 million" is not even close to 16+ million, let alone 29+ million. Remember, the Yale/MIT study was started around 2016 and completed in 2018. Who really knows what the numbers are now. With our broken system and "forgiveness" for all those that have already entered illegally, this will only continue to encourage others to cross over. And why not if those in power continue to have the mindset of, "OK, since you are already here, you get to stay." In a few years, the number will be 30 or 40 plus million. Yes, we need to be tough. So, we either fix the system, or become even more awash with those crossing the border, or ramp up efforts to stop and return those attempting to enter illegally. Just one more thought on this - isn't entering another country, isn't entering the U.S. illegally a serious crime? If not, then why have a law at all?

"Baffled by the lack of humanity (and inaccurate information!) propagated by 1644 and other anti-immigrant individuals."

What? Who the heck is "anti-immigrant"? We who know better than you are anti ILLEGAL immigrant. You do know the difference, right?

"The US really does have enough resources for everybody..."

As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that you run out of other people's money. Have you studied the current U.S. national debt?

"...especially when one considers that people who get social assistance when they need it tend to be upwardly mobile later in their lives."

Yeah right. As the trillions spent LBJ's Great Society programs have demonstrated. Just look at how "upwardly mobile" the demographic targeted by such hand-outs have been. Makes you wonder how Eastern European immigrants in the 19th century - who came here legally - were able to succeed and prevail considering that there were no such public programs back then.

CityYankee, about 40% of the immigrants entered the country legally but overstayed or otherwise violated their visas. This is an administrative violation, not a crime - offenders are not subject to imprisonment. Think of it like having an overdue library book, on steroids.

1644, I wouldn't put too much weight on polls such as that. They routinely find that tons of people want to move to or from city A or country B. Even when there are no legal barriers (e.g., visa requirements), the actual number of moves is far smaller. Raising wages would increase labor force participation rates and decrease the need for immigrant labor. But migration is more a matter of push factors than the fiscal policies of the receiving country. Fields like farm work and meat processing have been dominated by migrant workers (many of them here illegally) for decades, through very different fiscal policies. People are fleeing Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc. because conditions there are intolerable. The same was true when my ancestors emigrated from Ireland 150 years, when the U.S. had an open door policy. You're right that the country has changed since then. I think it makes sense to move towards a skill-focused immigration policy, as in Canada or Australia. But the vast majority of the "illegal" migrants are not going to be deported. BTW, I think the restaurant situation you observed is more a function of its $17.70 (AUS) minimum wage than its immigration policy.