What do you think about the lack of rights legal, permanent non-citizen residents have?

It sucks. But he should have known better. Unfortunately, if you’re not going to get the rules changed, you have to play by them or leave.

How is it a “lack of rights”?

They have every right to live here, as long as they do it within the bounds of the law. Possessing an illegal drug is against the law. Therefore, they have violated the condition under which they were granted the right to live here.

They have the same rights they’ve always had. The fact that this story made the NYTimes will probably result in him getting to stay because of the public outcry were he deported.

BULLSHIT. This case is pure BS. And everyone here talking about they have the same rights and how is it a lack of rights is also full of it.

“When a police officer in this Long Island suburb found a marijuana cigarette in Jerry Lemaine’s pocket one night in January 2007, a Legal Aid lawyer counseled him to plead guilty. Under state statutes, the penalty was only a $100 fine.”

Then, “But Mr. Lemaine, a legal permanent resident, soon discovered that his quick guilty plea had dire consequences. Immigration authorities flew him in shackles to Texas, where he spent three years behind bars, including 10 months in solitary confinement, as he fought deportation to Haiti, the country he had left at age 3.”

So much for America, the Home of the Brave.
What a cowardly act that was, to imprison Jerry Lemaine… including 10 months in solitary!
The Land of the Free! Haha…What a joke that is becoming, too.

Further proof that a right is no guarantee of anything in our country and enforced by the beholder of the night stick.

the bottom line, deporting him for his crime, is not representative of a lack of rights, his rights are simply different. He is treated differently because he is classified differently (non-citizen vs. citizen).

@davidbetterman GA!!

@wonderingwhy “because he is classified differently”. Exactly – he doesn’t have the same rights, and it is a lack of rights. He is still a legal, permanent resident.

@DrasticDreamer I said deporting him wasn’t representative of a lack of rights. I was speaking in general terms, specifically because of his status he could have the right to not be deported (and doesn’t, so in that sense he lacks) – but, as being a citizen renders you without a place to be deported to, there is no adequate comparison, hence it is not representative.

He may be a “legal, permanent resident” but he’s not a citizen, legally, there’s a difference.

legal, permanent non-citizen

I see that as an oxymoron.

In the article, the man in question was also found with a pot cigarette on an earlier occasion but the charges were dropped and the event was effectively erased. However, this was brought to light in order to count as a second drug offense and thus make the whole situation a deport-able offense.

I guess really what I want to know is what you think of this man being deported as opposed to serving jail time. Why, as a non-citizen, is his transgression worse and his punishment more severe?

Because there is somewhere to deport him, whereas US Citizens are already home.

I imagine there is a need for this sort of stupidity in order to justify jobs and salaries for worthless scum who really do nothing positive for the US. (The cop involved, the justice system which continued this travesty, the immigration employees…etc..etc…)

Not only should this man not be deported for possession of one marijuana cigarette, he should not have even been made to go to trial and he should never have been arrested. If anything, a ticket should have been issued.

A man living in the US legally, paying his taxes, raising a family, and occasionally smoking some pot.
Obviously we won’t be safe until this man is deported.

@Captain_Fantasy: It just drives me crazy that they’ve manipulated drug laws so that something that would cost him a hundred dollars and an incident that was officially erased from the record combined to become a crime punishable by deportation.