dianavan,

Mick may have wrong information about how the 9/11 terrorists got into the country. Now that you have pointed that out to him, I know Mick well enough to be sure he will follow your link and make any needed corrections to the facts. That does not, however, warrant labeling the the whole sad, frightening tale bogus. I don't speak Spanish so I don't work directly with the hispanic migrants that are a significant minority in my area. I do, however, work with Anglo women married to hispanic (mostly Mexican) migrants. In most, but all circumstances, their partners are here legally, and have been here for years and years. They are living in ever increasing fear. Legal migrants with wives and children who are US citizens are living with justifiable fear that one misstep, a simple traffic violation for example, will lead to their deportation. Or simply that a beaurocratic screw-up or simple computer glitch will rip apart their families forever.

Their fears are justified. A very simple example that I know is factual, simply because I attempted to intervene, unsuccessfully, on behalf of the family. Legal Mexican immigrant , legally married to my Anglo client for 15 years. Two children, ages 10 & 6. Long term, permanent employment on a local tobacco farm. Got a DWI two years ago. Quit drinking, got into treatment, dealt with the substance abuse issue. Never got the money together to pay the considerable fines and court costs to get his drivers license back. So he didn't drive. She drove him back and forth to work. But the fines were still not paid. Last October, he was contacted by the local INS (federal agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service) that he needed to come in to sign some paperwork to renew his Green Card (documentaltion that he is a legal alien). It was a trick. When he didn't come home that night, she started making phone calls. The next day she called INS when they opened. His papers were in order and current. They had lured him in and detained him in order to deport him for failure to pay the fines. Neither she or their children were allowed to see or talk to him before he was sent back to Mexico. It is almost a year later. He is in Mexico and can not return to his family. The family is now on welfare. The kids are absolutely bewildered as to what happened to their Dad. (really, so is Mom.) If Mom and kids could find the means to go to Mexico to join him, he could not support them there. And besides, Mom is anglo and the kids have been born and raised in the USA. This is their country, their home. It had become his home too.

We hve become a fascist state.

It isn't just immigrants or other minorities folks. They are coming after you and me next.

I wish I could attibute that to paranoid thinking on my part. But it is not. It is a realistic assessment of the current state, and future direction of our country. These gestapo tactics with devalued immigrants are simply a dress rehearsal for what you and I, most of us White, can expect to experience in this brave new world in which we live.

dont' think for one minute that you are safe.http://wunc.org/tsot Don't be fooled into believing that Big Brother is not watching.