Now they can't travel freely because their identification might be checked, leading to their deportation.

Pedro Perez has not left Orcas Island in more than four months. Not for weekend trips with his family, not for cheaper groceries on the mainland, not for medical care—not for anything.

He is afraid border agents will stop him and send him back to Mexico, wrecking the quiet life he has built on one of Washington's remote San Juan Islands.

"I had my eyes on this place for my kids to grow up in," Perez, who is married with two young children, said in Spanish. "There's no gangs here, no crime. It's the kids who suffer."

Perez—who does odd jobs, mostly landscaping—is one of perhaps dozens of illegal immigrants on the islands who have been essentially trapped since February, when the U.S. Border Patrol began checking IDs on ferry runs from the islands to the mainland.

Boo-frickin'-hoo! You are in this country in violation of the law. You ought to be afraid -- very afraid. Indeed, you ought to be so afraid that you go back home and wait in line to enter this country legally.

But there is some good news.

Others have taken the risk and paid the price: As of late May, 49 people had been arrested by the Border Patrol and face deportation. All but one were Latin American.

It is really very simple -- we don't need to deport all the illegal aliens in this country. We simply need to turn the heat up enough that they leave on their own.

Posted by: Greg at 02:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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