[Coco] OT: Immigration

[Rod Barnhart]

This is definitely OT, but with the recent discussion of Diego's
situation, I thought it might be worth sharing:

I work for a company which does criminal background checks, random
drug testing, and other pre-employment and criminal justice related
services. One of the services we offer is submitting fingerprints to
the state crime lab electronically (or the FBI the old fashioned way)
for them to run a check against them.

Yesterday, we had an 81 year old woman show up for fingerprinting,
because apparently INS suddenly showed up on her doorstep to arrest
her and start deportation hearings against her. Even though she has a
greencard, a snafu at INS makes them think she does not. So, she's
gotta go through the entire process again, even though she's been in
the US since she was 17 and has had her greencard from the beginning.
Apparently a state lab check against her fingerprints is part of that
process now.

On a positive note, she had a sense of humor about the entire
situation, saying that she should jest let them deport her because
could use the free vacation back to England to visit her three
sisters, but then she'd have to sneak back in via Mexico (which she
was sure she could do). And that she's not here to steal or jobs or
rob our banks, because, as she said "I don't drive. How would I get
away?"

Sorry for being so off-topic. Even though the situation was surreal
and not really related, it reminded me of Diego's situation. I thought
others might get a kick out of the absurdity of it as well...

-- 
Rod Barnhart aka Wintermute (http://www.nitemarecafe.com)