Settlement opens up amnesty for tens of thousands of immigrants

Los Angeles Times ^ | December 15, 2008 | Teresa Watanabe

[HollyButler]

For two decades, Anaheim businessman Erkan Aydin has taken on a task unimaginable for most immigrants like himself: trying to convince the U.S. government that he was here illegally.

Aydin, 50, arrived in the United States from his native Turkey with a valid student visa in 1981, but fell out of legal status when he failed to enroll in school, he said.The customer service representative has a powerful reason why he wants to be considered an illegal immigrant. It would make him eligible for the amnesty offered to 2.7 million illegal immigrants under the 1986 immigration reform law.

Thanks to a recent legal settlement, the chance to apply for amnesty is finally open to Aydin and tens of thousands of others who entered the country on a valid visa but fell out of legal status between 1982 and 1988. The settlement, approved this fall by a U.S. district court in Washington state, stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by attorney Peter Schey originally on behalf of an immigrant assistance program of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

"I have been born again, like a new baby," Aydin said last week in his Anaheim car dealership office. "I will start a beautiful life in this beautiful country."

The landmark reform law offered a one-time amnesty to immigrants who were in the United States unlawfully from before 1982 to about 1988.

But Congress was concerned that those who entered the country with a valid visa would argue that they fell out of legal status during that time simply to qualify for amnesty. As a result, Schey said, Congress created a rule requiring immigrants to show that their shift from legal to illegal status was "known to the government."

[HollyButler]

Unbelieveable!

[org.whodat]

The settlement, approved this fall by a U.S. district court in Washington state

Jorge sticking it to the republicans again!!!

[headstamp 2]

Don’t worry. This country is bent on committing national suicide through any means possible. Amnesty, economic, social, you name it and nothing will stand in the way to that end.

The bill is coming due on all of this insanity a lot sooner than most people think and it will be a doozy.

[PghBaldy]

Pillars of society: As a banker in Nigeria, he said his colleagues would return from studying in the United States and regale him with stories about the land of opportunity.

[ccmay]

The two guys in this story don't seem to have been a burden on society. We'd probably do well to trade some native-born tax-eater types of our own for men like them.

-ccm

[Arguendo]

This would be Reagan’s problem, even if the Bush Administration agreed to the ultimate settlement.

[gubamyster]

ping

[ruination]

Shame on you. America isn’t a normal country, with a culture and customs of its own or with particular national interests. America is an idea - a blank slate whose purpose is to allow the “American Dream” of the rest of the world’s people to be realized.

[dennisw]

Shame on you. America isn’t a normal country, with a culture and customs of its own or with particular national interests. America is an idea - a blank slate whose purpose is to allow the “American Dream” of the rest of the world’s people to be realized.

You are being sarcastic but that's how many Americans think about America
Bring in any kind of bad ass misfits like Somalians and Hmong and mestizo Mexicans/Central Americans and it's all good because they will all become Americans and their dumb ass children too. Overlooking the fact that these peoples are pre-literate

Founding fathers are rolling over in their graves. For them America was to be a European nation