>>My son heard on the radio that in the United States they want to declare it a criminal act, for an alien to be in the United States without documentation, or something of the sort. He asked: "Wasn't it a criminal act, already?" To the best of my knowledge, I answered that I assume that aliens can be thrown out of the country for being there without a permit, but that they can't be otherwise prosecuted and thrown into prison. Is the news he heard correct? Is this my understanding of the situation correct?
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>>My son heard this news in Spanish; would the word "felony" be used in English?
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>>TIA,
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>>Hilmar.
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>Maybe there's some confusion between 'illegal' and 'criminal'. According to this link entering illegally is a crime, being in the country illegally is not :
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57266Really does seem to be a distinction without a difference if you are in the country illegally because you entered illegally. Overstaying or otherwise violating the terms of a visa (working on a tourist visa etc) would be the only circumstance I could think of where one might not be guilty of a crime. Otherwise, having entered illegally one has committed a crime.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
