Midtopia

Midtopia

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Artist faces deportation


Came across this interesting individual face in the ongoing immigration debate. Should Huck Gee be deported?

He's a British national who has lived in the United States since he was 7. He's now 33, and hasn't been back to England in 16 years.

But he never applied for citizenship, thanks mostly (he says) to inertia and not seeing much difference between that and permanent residency. Sounds like a lot of young adults I know.

When he was 18, he was caught selling $5 worth of marijuana to a friend of a friend. Frankly, that also sounds like a lot of young adults I know.

He paid his fine and served 30 days in work release and 3 years' probation.

14 years later, he's a successful art toy designer. He took a trip to Asia. When he got back to the States, he got interrogated by Homeland Security, which initiated deportation proceedings against him based on the 1991 conviction.

Does this seem just to you? Is this the face we want to present to the world? Why do we go out of our way to punch people in the nose? Does that really enhance our security? Is this a good use of our limited resources?

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