I just saw a report on ABC about a woman who claims that the US government stole her child. She entered the country illegally, which is a felony and an insult to the national sovereignty of this country, and when she was caught, she was deemed to be an unfit mother for smuggling her child across international boundaries. In his 2008 decision, terminating Encarnacion’s parental rights, Circuit Court Judge David C. Dally wrote that the biological mother’s “lifestyle, that of smuggling herself into a country illegally and committing crimes in this country is not a lifestyle that can provide stability for a child…A child cannot be educated in this way, always in hiding or on the run.”
Her son was taken away from her and has been adopted out to a family that has had him for 5 years. Now this illegal immigrant, Encarnacion Bail Romero, is trying to get her son back. She’s trying to play the ‘broken family’ card to get sympathy from the American public. She’s trying to get us to overlook the fact that she’s a convicted felon who disregarded the sovereignty of our nation by ignoring our legal immigration procedures. She wants to use our own court system against us.
This excerpt from the article sums up my opinion fairly well:
“When parents break the law, they undertake a certain amount of risk that there are going to be consequences,” said Daniel Stein of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
“Anyone can feel for the torment that this poor woman is going through, recognizing that she doesn’t have the educational and the language capabilities to fully defend and vindicate her rights,” said Stein.
“Nevertheless, she knew she came to this country illegally, she knew she broke the law,” he told ABC News.
This illegal immigrant will get no sympathy from me. If she didn’t want her family to be broken, she shouldn’t have broken federal laws. We have borders for a reason. We have immigration procedures for a reason. It’s too late. The ship has already sailed. If this kid (formerly called Carlos and now named Jamison) has been adopted out and with a new family for 5 years, she should let the boy enjoy his life, because she would be a stranger to him. What she wants to do would totally destroy this kid’s life, because he would be emotionally scarred forever. I can’t imagine why she would imagine that fighting for custody of the kid would be in his best interest, since he doesn’t even know her and doesn’t speak Spanish (the biological mother speaks no English), unless of course she’s looking for an anchor that she can use to stay in the United States herself.
Original Story on ABC: “Adoption Battle Over 5-Year Old Boy Pits Missouri Couple Vs. Illegal Immigrant“
Bradley Farless 
Yes it is.
The sad thing here is that I know of fathers and children who do not qualify anymore and we’ve tried to ask help from the pro-illegal groups and THEY DO NOT CARE AT ALL.
This is often an overlooked problem. You see the US had and has many overseas bases and “half americans” without American citizenship and cannot claim even if in their birth certificate were signed by their fathers.
In the case of Nguyen and Flores Villar who had US citizen fathers, they were even deported. Can’t deport and illegal but it’s okay to deport a foreign born child of a US citizen and the “rights activists” DO NOT CARE. Maybe because they see this issue as a “competitor” for their “freeriding”?
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You know what the irony here is?
A baby of an illegal immigrant or a tourist is AUTOMATICALLY considered a citizen of the US BUT when a US citizen goes abroad, falls in love with a non-citizen, has child/children with her (I am referring to a US male citizen), it takes a shithole and too much money to just get his child US citizenship. In the case if the parents are not married and the US citizen goes back to the US and the connection is lost, if the child reaches 18, the child CANNOT be a citizen anymore. No legal remedies.
Now, how freaky and unfair is that. ILLEGALS and TOURISTS has it easy to have a US citizen baby but it takes too many red tape for a US citizen who has a child abroad to get citizenship for his kid?
The citizenship clause should be modified and only be fore children of US citizens and greencard holders (aka taxpayers)
Some case might interest you regarding children of US citizsens born abroad denied citizenship and/or deported (yes, deported!)
Flores-Villar
Miller vs Albright
Nguyen vs INS
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“In the case if the parents are not married and the US citizen goes back to the US and the connection is lost, if the child reaches 18, the child CANNOT be a citizen anymore. No legal remedies.”
Now that’s some bullshit…
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I'm not familiar with the pipeline you mentioned, but I think the real solution is to reduce our dependence on oil itself, rather than to find alternative sources of oil. I agree with your assessment of culture in the US. I think the only thing that unites us as a country is our willingness to not kill each other in exchange for relative security and access to consumer goods, though that breaks down in poor areas, where people are more willing to violate society because they receive nothing from it in terms of social mobility and 'respect'.I also agree with your assessment of the Republican's tactics in the run-up to the election. It's shameful, really.
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Thanks!I wouldn't necessarily agree with taxing the rich more. I would say that there should be a flat percentage tax across the board, so no one is getting an unfair shake. If you make 25k a year and get taxed 20%, a guy making 2 million a year (for example) should also pay 20%. I also think corporate loopholes that allow corporations that are making billions in profits to not pay any taxes should be closed. No company that brings in 12 billion in profit should be exempt from taxes. I read about an example where that was the case. Something like 12 billion in profits, 0 taxes paid. As for the food stamps being on cards, it's the same everywhere I think. Legally, merchants are only supposed to accept that form of payment for food items, and not even all food items are supposed to count, like I think soda isn't supposed to count. You know how it is though. Greed wins. The merchants take the payment to make a profit.Thinking about what you said about women's roles, mutilation, etc., and what I said before, I remembered something that could help shed light on the problem. When Arabic armies from the Arabian peninsula first spread out over the Middle East and North Africa, taking Islam with them, the religion was only about 22 years old, if you go by the date of the first convert, which was, by the way, a woman, Muhammad's wife, Khadija, who is known as the mother of all Muslims in Islam. She holds a place similar to that of Mary in the religion. So, what happened is that this new religion, with only a bare bones structure of rules and beliefs, spread out over a multitude of cultures who already had legal systems and customs in place. This is a really complex subject that I spent a few days hearing about in lectures, so I'll try to break it down for you. Basically, as the religious legal structure developed in Islam, there wasn't always clear guidance regarding how people should behave, and Islam is a very rules-oriented system. In those cases, of which there were many, the default ruling was based on local, existing custom. This process was called urf. Technically, urf was supposed to be compatible with (in the spirit of existing) Islamic law. In practice, many communities continued to use urf instead of Islamic law. Over time, the spirit of the Quran (this is my opinion) probably got buried under urf. When the Quran was revealed, society was very patriarchal, and the freedoms that were being granted to women by the Quran was very controversial and many people tried to rebel against them. After Muhammad died, it's probably likely that women were even more forcefully oppressed than before in many areas, to make up for the temporary 'abnormality' and reassert patriarchy. It was probably done through urf, which eventually influenced Shariah, or Islamic law. Over the last few decades, mostly what we see in the news are people in the Middle East and Pakistan calling for returns to more fundamentalist and old fashioned types of Islam, but the Quran was a message of social change and progress and Islam itself reflected that progress in most ways, but not in terms of women's rights, though Turkey granted women equality and the right to vote in the 30s and it was the seat of the Ottoman Empire for 600 years, so it's not impossible for Islam to be compatible with modern values.
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Bradley, thanks for that intelligent and thoughtfully written post!I like what you said about not being able to assess a culture when they're the enemy. Good point. It's also SO refreshing to have a conversation like this when all I'm exposed to are people on FaceBook 'liking' the tax the rich, take their money and give it to the deadbeats who wouldn't work anyway because they don't have to, crowd. They get 'checks'. In Massachusetts there are no more 'food stamps' because it 'shames' the recipients, so they issue a debit card into which the Government pours money and the card can be used for anything including lottery tickets, dvd players, etc. Used to be that food stamps were restricted to food and necessities. Massachusetts is the a great place to live if you're 'collecting'.I wouldn't fit completely into either the liberal or conservative camps either despite my rant which I'm sure comes across as way to the right, but I admit that I've become somewhat polarized about Islam after reading Hirsi Ali's book and as you point out, she grew up in uncivilized Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Kenya and was of course, born in Somalia, where decades of tribal war have wreaked havoc. Islam scares me more than the other groups i.e. atheists, extreme Christians, because I think that the women are too oppressed to be able to make a difference in bringing the males around to what would be considered civilized in the 21st Century. All the beheading and lopping off of limbs is chilling in this day and age. Genital mutilation of children, too.The situation in the Middle East is complicated and of course we've switched sides many times over the years so there can understandably be no real trust there. BUT, we need their oil and right now Iran is ready to shut us out, with force if necessary, yet Obama shoots down this pipeline (and I don't live in the path of the pipeline so it's easy for me to say) but Obama has made a foolish decision to pander to the NIMBY people when this could be a boon in more than one way.I see us turning into a selfish, narcissistic culture who wants to consume, and throw away and not have any idea where it all comes from or where it goes. Hates war but wouldn't bother to send a package to a soldier or thank a soldier in an airport or on the street. We aren't United :(. That, in part is why I think we're where we are today. It bother's me greatly that the Network News shows make NO mention of Afganistan or any conflict where we have soldiers, still. It works to have 'news' stories about overweight America or Smoking because it diverts attention from important REAL NEWS! I call the nightly news propaganda. Obama's happy, neatly tied up ending of the Iraq War is not even believable no matter where one stands on the right or wrong of it. Pure pandering. In this particular election the Republicans are so bent on besting each other and diverting our attention BACK to the Life vs Pro choice that they're just clearing the path for Obama's second term. Fools. Our country has been mismanaged into unfathomable debt and other residual problems and we're back to arguing about abortion. I don't feel that either the Democrats OR the Republicans are either the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys'. They're all Politicians using whatever rhetoric they can to sway voters. I've always voted as an Independent, by which I mean there's never a good choice so I have to make a decision :)So, interesting that you're studying Middle Eastern culture and Islam. This country needs more people like you.I've book marked your site so I can read on…… 😀 and rant ……
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There are also atheists who will press a lawsuit to have murals removed from school walls because they contain references to Biblical events. Everyone wants things to conform to their world view. US politics is the contest of those wills, among others (corporate wills, etc.). So, I can't vilify Muslims but let Christians or atheists slide for the same 'offense'.I by no means support the Islamization of US law any more than I want to see a return to Biblical law (Christianization). I also don't want to see the culture in the US overtaken by a foreign one, regardless of the fact that there are many parts of it that I personally object to. However, I respect the right of all people to petition for and (peacefully) demonstrate for what they feel is important to them.My views probably vary too much to fit neatly into a liberal or conservative category. Feel free to continue to rant in my comments section.
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Hi. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I enjoyed hearing your opinion. I would like to make a few clarifications. You know how it is these days. Silence is often taken for tacit approval.My exposure to Middle Eastern cultures in the Middle East was more limited than you might think, despite having spent close to two years there. The problem is that you can't really come to understand a culture unless you live in that culture and become a part of it. It's not possible to do that when you're looking at that culture down the barrel of a rifle, figuratively or literally. I was immersed in the American military culture during my stay in Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq, and I only had occasional chances to observe locals, but that observance was tainted by the fact that they were engaged with us (US military) peacefully or otherwise. Most of my knowledge has been gained through talking to Middle Easterners online, in person in the US, and through studying history. My knowledge of Islamic society has been gained mostly through first hand discussion, classroom study and personal research of actual Islamic material as presented by Muslims, rather than what's presented by commentators or critics.That being said, I am by no means an expert on the Middle East (yet) or on Islam (yet). I'm getting there slowly, and if you keep looking at the things I post I'm sure you'll see the level of knowledge I'm able to demonstrate about the topic improve over time.I wouldn't exactly say that the US 'deserved' the attack on the Twin Towers. I don't think anyone deserves to suffer from violence. I'm more inclined to side with Gandhi's argument that violence escalates a situation and leads to more violence, which can be seen in the resultant invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, I would say that the actions of the terrorists who demolished the Twin Towers was caused by a long history of foreign policy blunders that have painted the US as a bad guy in the Middle East. Those blunders are drummed up through rhetoric, the same way that political commentators in the US drum up support for certain causes. The Twin Towers was not the first time the US suffered from terrorism. It won't be the last. Terrorism is the new bogeyman though. It's this generation's Communism. It'll be in the news until the next major conflict pops off, which, given the way things are going, might wind up being in the Middle East again anyway, with Iran and Israel as the primary combatants.Most of the Muslims I know are from Pakistan, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh. The ones I know in person I mean. It's hard to draw a comparison between them and the Muslims I've met from the Middle East, but I'm pretty sure that Islam isn't the monolithic evil that you attribute to it. Islam comes in flavors, the same way that Christianity does, and I think the tempering effect of exposure to South Asian religions heavily influenced South and Southeast Asian Islam. It comes across as much more tolerant to me, compared to the policies of Middle Eastern governments and the few Middle Eastern Muslims I've spoken with. I feel like the problem with the Middle East is that because of the governments, the people are too insulated from foreign ideas (religious, philosophical, ethical, and moral values, etc.) and that it locks them into a vicious, 1400 year old cycle of violence.I have little doubt that extremely religious Muslims would like to see Shariah law, or at least the values it represents, implemented in US law. However, I also know that there are fundamentalist Christians that wail and gnash their teeth at the legality of abortion and want to see a return to traditional Christian values represented in the nation's laws.
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I like your thoughts here Bradley and I'm more inclined to take your point of view seriously because of your service in the Army (thank you) which gave you a firsthand look at other cultures particularly the Islamic countries of the Middle East. Most of my friends are liberals who actually view the attacks on the twin towers as something America deserved as payback for US meddling and deceptions that you wrote about in your paper on Mahatma Gandhi. They view illegal immigration as a right of the oppressed who are escaping their home countries, much as the first commenter here seems to, also alluding to racism when illegals are discussed. Yes, they are now mostly Spanish speaking and we've already accommodated that by making all products and services Spanish/English and they're taking over. The glut of people streaming into the US, collecting welfare of one sort or another and sending dollars home to bring the relatives here are taking our country down. Cultures such as Islam who refuse to assimilate and have the audacity to lobby to change our culture to accommodate their religious beliefs including Sharia Law should be stopped in their tracks. After reading “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali I am more convinced than ever that radical Islam is more the rule than the exception and that the infiltration of terrorists into the US and Northern Europe is part of a larger goal to make Islam the way of the world. I recall recoiling in horror after seeing an Imam from London speaking on '60 Minutes” who said, “We expect to someday see the Islamic flag flying over the White House.”WHAT?I am aware that our country is not innocent of wrongdoing but I am Patriotic and although I believe that our government does lots of things we citizens would not approve of, I want America to remain American. Not Mexican. Not Islamic. They come they assimilate period, and shame on our ineffectual leaders for not securing our borders decades ago.The last ticket agent to see Mohammed Atta in Portland, ME on September 11th said in an interview that he looked into Atta's eyes and saw pure hatred and had never felt a more evil vibe on the job than he did then. Atta had no luggage and paid $2500 cash for a one way to Boston. The agent was immediately alarmed and thought there was reason to suspect him but in his words, he ignored his gut feeling and let him through thinking he was over reacting to a middle eastern business traveler. When he heard about the attacks an hour later he KNEW in his gut that he'd let Atta through.I think that we in the USA are being broadly taken advantage of and bamboozled BECAUSE we are more likely overlook our suspicions and be accommodating. Last October in Boston (where I'm from) Catholic University was taken to task for not having prayer rooms for Muslim students that were devoid of 'offensive religious symbols' such are Crucifixes and pictures of Jesus Christ and the Saints AND they caved in and accommodated! Why are MUSLIMS applying to a Christian University anyway??I appreciate your giving me a place to rant because I am very much in the minority in liberal Massachusetts. If I were to say any of this to my liberal Obama loving friends I'd be viewed as a racist. I would like to post under my name and blog site (I am an artist) but I'm aware that everything one posts on the internet is available just by googling one's name. Better to remain Anonymous, unfortunately. Keep up the commentary.PSI initially looked up how the Somali population, “Lost Boys” who were placed in Lewiston, Maine in the nineties were affecting the Maine way of life and it brought me to a post you made about it on this blog.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Again, I want to stress that the United States is a sovereign nation with borders and a legal system. As a country, we are not obligated to help everyone that manages to violate our Federal laws by entering illegally. It's sad that she lost her son, but if, as a child, you found out that the only mother you'd ever known wasn't really your mother, and you were given to a stranger that you didn't know or love, how do you think that would impact you psychologically?
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Its her son and she has all right to fight for him . She had good intentions for him. All she wanted was a better life for him.
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if you bend the rule for this case then you bend it for every other cases. the law is the law. she violated it she suffer the consequences. plain and simple. it is when we allow people to play on our emotions that it blurs the distinction between right and wrong.
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I do know, because I've assisted in a legal immigration.Just because there are people in the world doesn't mean the United States and its citizens are obligated to help them. We, as a nation, help ourselves first and then others if we want to, but not when they break our laws. We should never help people that disregard our sovereignty and sneak in.I have no problem with immigration. My problem is with illegal immigration.Also, even Gandhi believed in the necessity of laws to maintain order.
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WE ARE A SPOILED NATION WHERE SOME OF US REFUSE TO SEE WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE BRAVE ENOUGH TO COME HERE.WE WERE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE OUR FOREFATHERS PAVE THE WAY FOR US. DO YOU REALIZE HOW MUCH MONEY AND TIME IT TAKES TO BECOME A CITIZEN? MOST IMMIGRANTS DON'T COME HERE WITH THAT KIND OF MONEY.MOST ARE DRIVEN HERE OUT OF DESPERATION,LIKE HUNGER. THE MAJORITY OF THESE IMMIGRANTS COME HERE FOR THE SAME REASON OUR FOREFATHERS,MAINLY WHITE, CAME TO THIS COUNTRY.THE IRISH CAME HERE LOOKING FOR BETTER JOBS AND BETTER WAGES,YET THEY WERE TREATED VERY BADLY AND LOOKED UPON AS OFFENSIVE AND “DIRTY”.THEY TOOK MANY UNSKILLED LABOR POSITIONS. THE GERMAN IMMIGRANTS WERE THROWN BRICKS ON THE STREETS AND THEY WERE RIDICULED FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK ENGLISH WELL.THE CHINESE IMMIGRANTS ALSO ENCOUNTERED MUCH RESISTANCE, AS THEY WERE ACCUSED AS TAKING JOBS AWAY FROM OTHER IMMIGRANT GROUPS. THE SCOTS,THE JEWISH,YES, I COULD GO ON AND ON…IN NEW YORK CITY, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS,MILWAUKEE,FOREIGN BORN ,OUTNUMBERED THE NATIVE BORN POPULATION. MORE AND MORE IMMIGRANTS MIGRATED HERE FROM EUROPE TO ESCAPE A LOT OF WHAT TODAY'S IMMIGRANTS ARE ESCAPING. I WONDER,IF THE CHILD HAD BEEN TAKEN FROM AN ILLEGAL IRISH IN DOWNTOWN BOSTON, TODAY, WOULD YOU FEEL THE SAME. THEY GO PRACTICALLY UNOTICED BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN AND EYES,BUT YES, THEY TOO ARE HERE ILLEGALLY.PROBABLY IN THE THOUSANDS, YET WE HARDLY SEE THE NEWS MEDIA COVERING THEIR STATUS. LIKE THE MAHATMA GANDHI PHRASE ON THE SIDE SAYS IT ALL-“WORDS WITHOUT A HEART”, YOUR WORDS!
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