Berenice Louis,22, has been selling her belongings to keep her self and her two daughters fed after her husband, who was a construction worker left them.
Her husband, Juan Louis, 23, who came here from Mexico illegally four years ago was recently arrested and deported back to Mexico.
Louis and her two daughters were among the estimated 250-350 people, mostly children, who rallied at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle calling for changes in the US immigration laws that would prevent such family separations.
They carried signs that read "Don't abandon the children" and "Stop deportations; I need to be with my mom."
Marchers included Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who talked about his own family immigrants roots, when they came from Germany in 1880.
Nickels said that he wants Seattle to be the kind of city where people can feel secure as you knock on the door late at night and where you call 911 and the Seattle police will not ask you your immigration status.
ra Mehlman, a spokesman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports the enforcement of immigration laws, said logic often gets lost beneath the sad stories of deportation.
"When parents break the law, they put their families in jeopardy. They are responsible," Mehlman said. "It should be no different from all the other cases where people break the law."
"The kids stay here, the parents get sent back and the families are torn apart," said Hilda Magana, director of the children's program at the Seattle nonprofit, El Centro de la Raza, who brought 58 kids from the preschool day care facility to the rally and march to show support, she said, for "putting families first."
Wednesday's march came after 51 undocumented [illegal] aliens were detained at two UPS warehouse in Auburn.
I agree with Mehlman.
The parents knew the consequences of breaking the law if they got caught, and what it would do to the children.
It was any other subject, that would be considered child abuse.
4 comments:
How sad! It's really, really sad! It's sad in the same way that meth users and other lawbreakers don't really seem to care about the danger in which they place their families. It's a terrible thing when families are broken apart. And it's so easily prevented: don't break our laws.
Old saying - still rings true -
DON'T DO THE CRIME
IF YOU CAN'T DO THE TIME.
I wonder how the children will grow up? Will they be angry at the world because they they didn't get what they thought was OWED to them? Will their values be slanted because they were on the side of the lawbreakers and believed they were right?
This is about more than just immigration, this is about right and wrong. These children will never understand the difference.
I'll be using Fed-Ex from now on.
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