¿ Secure Communities ? or War on Immigrants - RI AG-elect has a very bad idea.

I was hoping to post something light today or something about Elizabeth Edwards or a few lines from Grace Paley, but I heard this sad news on the radio.

Fingerprinting people who are accused of crimes ?

Here's the Providence Journal story.

By W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Attorney General-elect Peter Kilmartin plans to adopt a federal initiative that would allow law-enforcement officers to fingerprint people under arrest and have them automatically checked against an immigration database to see whether they legally entered this the country legally.

Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that Rhode Island is just one 1 of 17 states nationwide that has yet to implement the cross-checking program known as the Secure Communities Program. The government hopes to have the program up and running in all 50 states within two years.

If you read the article, take a few minutes and read the responses. They were overwhelmingly in support of this, and several were explicitly hostile to Steve Brown, of the ACLU.

I wrote a little comment of my own, but as of this moment, it is "awaiting moderation."

When I think of my family, friends,clients, neighbors and this issue, I sometimes get quite emotional. There was an amazing woman named Ilse Politzer who used to bicycle all over the city (Providence) to vigils and everywhere else. She had fled the Nazis and expressed concerns two decades ago, about the way this country was developing.

I found this quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt which is apt:

“Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists”

The source might be: remarks before the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D.C., April 21, 1938. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt,1938, p.259.

On a funny note, a client of mine was deported once, and he sent me a short letter to my workplace. He wrote that he was praying for my advancement to a director position within the agency. That was not in my prayers, but he meant well.

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“Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.”

~ Grace Paley