Two Immigrants, Two Standards: "Two Immigrants, Two Standards
By Stacy Caplow and Lauren Kosseff
Saturday, February 11, 2006; Page A19
We recently learned that U.S. immigration policy is, in fact, capable of fast action and flexibility. It just depends on who the immigrant is.
In December Congress speedily passed special immigration legislation to benefit just one person: an ice dancer. As a Canadian, she couldn't join the 2006 U.S. Olympics team. But a law was written that lasted exactly two days, long enough for her to be fast-tracked for citizenship and sent to compete for the United States.
Around the same time, we at the Safe Harbor Project at Brooklyn Law School received notice that the U.S. immigration system had denied entry to Teresa, a 14-year-old African girl who has been stranded as a refugee in Guinea almost all her life. She is trying to join her adoptive mother, Momara (no real names are used here, as is generally practiced with asylum), a refugee from Sierra Leone who was granted asylum in the United States. But in this girl's case, there is no fast track, only the rigid application of a procedural rule."
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