Help for Some Immigrants

My name is Randy Feldman.

I am an immigration lawyer here in Worcester, a job I have done for more than twenty years in the city. Immigration is back in the news this week but unfortunately not because there is a broad new immigration law that would make sense of ineffective and outdated laws.
President Obama’s new plan to suspend deportation for unlawfully present people who were brought here as youngsters; those who have been in the U.S. for long periods of time and have U.S. citizen children or spouses, including those who have married under same sex laws; victims of domestic violence who have been married to a U.S. citizen or someone married to a U.S. citizen serving in the military. This is a fairness-oriented compromise.
The Obama Administration has deported approximately 400,000 people per year during the past two years, much more than the Bush Administration’s average. President Obama has also advanced the Secured Communities program which is in effect in many localities throughout the United States and will be mandatory everywhere by 2013. The program identifies all people with a criminal record, big and small, from driving without a license to much more serious crimes. Obama is right to do so; we need all the information we can easily gather about someone who is arrested. Running everyone’s fingerprints through the immigration service records makes sense if we are then going to treat each person with appropriate compassion and decency, instead of hardheadedness or hatred towards those who came looking for a better life, including immigrants without legal papers. We need to stop deporting everyone and treat with compassion those who previously came when our country seemed to need these folks as much as they needed us.