Undocumented aliens and hurricane aid

here's an interesting and virtually unreported angle on both the katrina and the impending rita disasters...

Thousands of Latin American immigrants in the southeastern United States uprooted by Hurricane Katrina are now fleeing Hurricane Rita, while activists are demanding that the U.S. government provide them with special protection, because so many are hesitant to seek assistance out of fear of deportation.

Katrina left 300,000 Latinos homeless and jobless, and "as far as we know, at least two immigrants who did seek aid have been arrested because they were undocumented," said Maricel García, spokeswoman for the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). But she warned that "there might actually be many more."

Although the George W. Bush administration states that it is providing humanitarian aid without regard to immigration status, "that is not what is really happening, which is just terrible," García said in a telephone interview with IPS from Chicago, Illinois.

Her organisation and around 60 other immigrant advocacy groups are demanding that the U.S. government grant humanitarian immigration status to migrants uprooted by Katrina, who either had no papers or have lost them, to allow them to receive aid and to remain in the United States.

The groups are also considering asking for that status for those who might be affected by Rita, which had grown into a category 4 hurricane by Wednesday as it headed towards Texas, a state that is home to an estimated six million people of Latin American and Caribbean origin.

oh, terrific... seek aid and get arrested... compassionate conservatism in action... i'm surprised the minutemen haven't surfaced in all this... i should shut up cuz that's probably gettin' ready to happen...

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