"When
people knock on your door, and they are fleeing abuse, the United States is
obligated morally and legally to let them in," says Virginia Raymond, an
immigration attorney fighting for the right of a single mother and her three
daughters to seek asylum in the U.S. after fleeing gang violence in El Salvador.
"Today, our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it,"
proclaimed President Obama in a speech announcing an executive action to shield
the 4-5 million undocumented immigrants who've lived in the U.S. for five years
or more from deportation. In making his case, he shared the story of "Astrid" a
college student afraid to visit her dying grandmother in Mexico for fear that
she'd never make it back over the border.
What the president didn't
address in that speech was the influx of immigrants coming from further south,
from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
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