Overlooked by ICE

Letter date: 
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Letter publisher: 
bend bulletin.com
Letter author: 
John Sabo - Bend
Letter body: 

Brian Tapia’s mother was deported by immigration authorities after having lived in the U.S. for 21 years (“Latino Voices,” The Bulletin, March 27). Tapia said, “... it can happen to anyone.” Well, Brian, as Sportin’ Life sang in “Porgy and Bess,” “It ain’t necessarily so.”

You see, President Barack Obama has an aunt who came to the U.S. from Kenya in the year 2000, according to the Boston Herald. When her visa expired, she stayed and became an illegal immigrant. Pretty soon, like thousands of people in South Boston, she needed housing. Rather than get on a subsidized housing waiting list, she was somehow able to go to the front of the line. How she did, nobody knows, or is unwilling to explain. She admits that she has never paid into the system.

She receives $700 a month in disability checks. The rest of her living expenses, she says, come from “heaven.”

In 2004, an immigration judge issued a deportation notice. She ignored it. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also ignored it. She continued to live at the taxpayer’s expense and complains that it is not enough.

In January 2009, she attended her nephew’s presidential inauguration, even though she was a blatant illegal immigrant. In May 2009, the same judge that issued the deportation order issued an amnesty order. Nobody knows what strings were pulled or who pulled them for the latest order. The judge isn’t talking.

So you see, when you say deportation can happen to anyone, remember, “It ain’t necessarily so.”