Congress needs to change a very unjust law. Back when the odious Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was enacted by Congress, many of its terrible consequences were clearly predictable. Now one has come to a head. But the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has run out of cells. So desperate is the squeeze that the INS is trying to decide how to release some of these people.
Demagogues are in full cry.
Unfortunately, the law that he pushed makes immigrant felons pay a second time by tossing them out of the country. For natives of Cuba and other countries without repatriation agreements with the United States, mandated detention is a de facto life sentence because they can neither go back nor get released. They become political prisoners. Not only is the law unjust on its face, but the numbers just don't add up. On an average day, the INS now has in custody some 16,000 people, triple the number of detainees it had in 1994.