Recently, our governor hear in Rhode Island issued an executive order inacting a series of rules that would try and block undocument immigrants from getting various services. As part of the order, all state agencies were going to have to check a national database confirming legal status of those involved. This has since been supplemented by our General Assembly, RI's legislative branch, passing a law that would require all employers in the state to do something similar with new employees.

I have never hidden the fact that I am against such restrictions against immigration. It is not that I support the idea of illegal immigration, but I think the process we have in the United States to allow legal immigration is so broken that I can understand why people use less than legal means to come around. We also have an economic system that has become dependent upon such cheap labor to fill low-paying positions that no one else wants. The Economist recently ran a story about how undocumented and documented immigrants play a core role in the economies of countries all over the world.

I also thnk that it is in our own best interest to provide social services for these people. Their health ties in greatly with securing community health. The same could be said for educating the kids.

Anyway, I am jumping on the soap box because I can honestly say that I now know, or knew, someone who has been directly affected by this whole bit.

The library I work at is located next to a small duplex that was bought by a really nice family about two years ago. There are two kids in the family. For the longest time they lived in our capital city, but moved out to this community to get away from city life. They were originally for Guatemala. From what I can tell, the youngest child who is in the first grade was born here, but the older child, who is in seventh grade, was born in the homeland.

Well, I found out that they seem to have picked up and headed back home to Guatemala. They did so in the middle of the night just as the kids were coming back from April vacation. It supposedly had to do with immigration issues, according to some of the other kids who come to the library. My assumption is that one or both of the parents had green cards that had expired.

I am not sure how they bought the house if they could not prove residency. I just feel so bad for the whole family. They had been here long enough that the kids had lost all of their accents, and the parents only had just a little bit of one. Now, the kids, who are used to cell phones and such, are going to have to get used to living in Guatemala. I can understand there is a legal issue involved, but at the same time, there is a humanitarian issue involved. It is nice to know that we are a country that sends families fleeing in the middle of the night because of our laws.