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Wednesday, May 17, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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P
I
N I
O
N
Bring immigrants out
of the shadows
By Brent Renison
Correspondent
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
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To the Editor:
How fortunate we are in Sisters to have
such dedicated people who are willing to give
their time and energy to present fine chorale
music for an hour program at no charge to
Sisters Country.
Beautiful music was performed both Friday
evening and Sunday afternoon at Sisters
Community Church. Stephanie King is an
excellent pianist, and the choir is fortunate to
have Connie Gunterman direct this year.
What a gift to this little city.
Bill Anttila
s
s
s
To the Editor:
With more than 70 years on this planet
and decades in National Strategic Intelligence
services, I am profoundly amazed that the
U.S. is so completely divided over something
so fundamental — when U.S. intelligence
sources and means are questioned involving at
the very least, speculative evidence, suggest-
ing there is high potential of foreign agency
and/or foreign government intervention into
the basic processes supporting the existence
of our democratically founded representative
republic.
It is no small thing that not only has the
U.S. domestic and foreign intelligence ser-
vices expressed deep concerns based on
routine and legal processes, these U.S. gov-
ernmental concerns sharing with our closest
allies, Australian, Great Britain, Canadian
and German intelligence branches, that
these same allies have consistently corrobo-
rated U.S. intelligence observations suggest-
ing collusion, corruption and Constitutional
violation.
See LETTERS on page 20
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Craig Rullman recently
authored a column entitled
“The Great Wall of Trump”
which provided details drawn
from his experience as a nar-
cotics officer in California
and recently released prison
statistics to seemingly suggest
that almost all those arrested
in the drug trade were individ-
uals in the U.S. illegally. That
isn’t true, and neither are his
claims that immigrants just
bring trouble and work for
nearly nothing.
According to statistics
Rullman cited, there were
41,528 people incarcerated in
federal facilities who were not
U.S. citizens. This does not
mean that that the person is in
the country illegally, as there
are green-card holders who
commit crimes, which then
make them deportable. For
example, Joao Herbert was an
orphan born in Brazil when he
was adopted by a U.S. couple
at the young age of 8 and
raised in Ohio. His Ameri-
can parents failed to file the
citizenship paperwork long
in advance of his 18th birth-
day and he did not become
a citizen. In high school, he
sold marijuana to another
classmate, and was ordered
deported to Brazil, where he
was subsequently murdered.
Someone like Joao would be
counted in that total.
Additionally, of the 41,528
people, a total of 14,798 were
in prison solely due to immi-
gration offenses, leaving
26,730 incarcerated for other
reasons. The charge of illegal
re-entry after deportation is
a felony charge, and is eas-
ily proven since the removal
order is on file and the person
is here. Somewhere between a
quarter and a half of all federal
prosecutions nationwide are
for this charge alone. It repre-
sented one in six prosecutions
initiated in Oregon in 2014.
The fact is that U.S. citi-
zens commit crimes at much
higher rates than immigrants.
Two studies, the Sentencing
Project and the Cato Institute
study, show that immigrants
commit less crime. The Cato
study found 1.53 percent of
U.S. citizens are incarcer-
ated nationwide, compared to
0.85 percent of undocumented
immigrants and 0.47 percent
of documented immigrants.
Rullman discusses immi-
grants’ abuse of hospital
care, gang members, bullet
holes and stab wounds, and
states that “All of that trou-
ble is headed toward Central
Oregon, by the way.” This is
fear mongering. There is no
evidence for such a claim.
The immigrants of Central
Oregon, both documented and
undocumented, are no more
criminals than the rest of the
citizen population. Addition-
ally, a majority of the undocu-
mented have family who are
U.S. citizens. Many are eligi-
ble to get green cards from an
immigration judge, but oddly
only if they are in deporta-
tion proceedings. However,
as I can personally attest,
ICE refuses to arrest undocu-
mented people who could get
a green card when they have
no criminal convictions. Oth-
ers would be eligible but are
prohibited from applying in
the U.S., and must leave the
country for 10 years before
joining their family. This fam-
ily separation penalty, enacted
in 1996, tells families to stay
apart, or break the law to stay
together.
Many come illegally
because they cannot wait
the more than two decades it
typically takes to reunite with
family legally. For example,
the Mexican-born son or
daughter of a U.S. citizen
is only just now eligible to
immigrate if their parent’s
petition for them was filed
in June of 1995, a nearly
22-year wait. There is also no
functional immigration law
to allow immigrants to come
legally and take low-skilled
jobs. The National Academy
of Sciences recently issued a
500-page report on the eco-
nomic impact of immigration.
They concluded the impact
of immigration on the wages
of native-born workers over-
all is very small and there is
little evidence immigration
significantly affects their
overall employment levels.
Immigrants contribute over
a trillion dollars to the econ-
omy, create jobs themselves
and even more immigrants
are needed if we hope to
fund the Social Security sys-
tem during the baby-boomer
retirement years. Despite the
positive aspects of immigra-
tion, people continue to blame
immigrants and urge restric-
tion. Our immigration system
is broken, punitive and out of
date. We need immigration
reform that allows people to
come out of the shadows, get
right with the law, and become
documented. We don’t need a
wall.
Brent Renison has been an
immigration lawyer for over
20 years; Adjunct Professor
University of Oregon Law
School 2004-07.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.