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Dear Editor:
My family's story is a very long one but I promise to be brief. My father has been in this country for nearly 45 years as a legal permanent resident. He came here from Italy to pursue the American dream. He never quite found the time to become a US citizen. He spent all of his life working, never taking a vacation. He became a very successful real estate developer in the Tri-State area.
In 1989 with the demise of the economy, he began to lose all of his real estate holdings. The IRS came down on him very harshly and began a long, expensive, extensive investigation of his company. After many years of the governments investigations, he was convicted of tax evasion. They turned a civil tax case into a crimminal case. My father plead not guilty because he felt that he always
filed all his returns properly and knew he had a tax obligation to pay. He felt thought he could work with the government to pay his debt that he ALWAYS reported as owing. But the IRS did not want to hear it. The government went to great lengths to make my father suffer. Needless to say, he was convicted at trial and was sentenced to 51 months imprisonment. His release date was September 13, 2001.
He has since been in INS detention because of the 1996 immigration law, which states that all aggravated felons are subject to deportation. Since September 11th, 2001, I know my father's chances of being deported are now very significant. My father has 5 children and 12 grandchildren all under the age of 9. My mother is not in good health and deteriorating by the day. He has not been back
to his country of origin, Italy in over 40 years. His roots are here, his family is here, his life is here. Our attorney's are not hopeful. No one will listen to this matter or cut us a break. He is not a violent man, and certainly does not pose a risk to society. SO WHATS THE PROBLEM WITH THIS COUNTRY? Doesn't the government realize that it is immigrants like him that builts this country.
And now all they want to do is rip him from his family and the place he calls home. We are at the end of our legal rope and know that inventiably all the INS wants to do is make an expamle out of him. The problem with this country is that they give liberties to the violent offenders and put them back on the streets and strip the rights of other, hard working people that get sucked into the political agenda.
Linda Wegman
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