Even if Tony's story failed to move you, it moved Tonio to tears.
Tonio is a refugee immigrant from Iraq. He was brought to this country by the US government because he opposed Saddam Hussein. His naturalization paperwork has been delayed for two years. Meanwhile, his wife back in Iraq has been subjected to attempted kidnapping, repeated beatings, and lives in constant fear for her life while the US government does nothing but tell Tonio to be patient.
America's broken immigration system is a major contributor to illegal immigration. Years of backlogs in the legal immigration pipeline have created a situation where even those who qualify for priority immigration status can't get processed. What are the regular Joes, Josés, and Giuseppes to do?
Do we really want to be a country where only those who can afford an immigration lawyer can get through the process and paperwork without risking deportation like Tony's wife Janina?
Is the return of Operation Wetback (increased by an order of magnitude) really how we want to deal with the 12 million undocumented people in this country?
Is rounding up employers and sending them to jail, thereby leaving undocumented workers jobless and stranded in a foreign country with no legal status really the progressive position? It sounds a lot like reverse Reaganomics to me.
As I've said before, reasonable people can disagree on how to go about fixing the US immigration system. Merely enforcing current laws isn't going to work, because the current laws are broken. Building the Berlin Wall across the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California borders is not going to fix the problem of people coming here on valid visas and then overstaying them (in addition to being an environmental and diplomatic catastrophe). It won't even work to stop border crossings. Those wily border-jumpers rediscovered an invention that wall proponents apparently never knew existed--the ladder.
I say the progressive position is to welcome these people with open arms. Those who are here in violation of the law need to face some consequences, but their lives and their families should not be ripped apart by deportation or detention. And we need to reform and fund an immigration system that once again invites people from all strata to take part in the American Dream.