A Massachusetts librarian was arrested this week because she's an illegal immigrant, and using a dead person's social security number.

She also:

• is mother to a fifteen month old son
• married to a legal US citizen (her high school sweetheart!)
• 23 years old
• pays taxes

• been living in the US FOR TWENTY YEARS.

This is exactly the problem with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Their priorities seem slightly skewed when they are going after a woman who, in any other country, would be a citizen by now. Their priorities seem slightly skewed when they write immigration laws so that a tax paying, stable and productive member of society cannot become a legal resident.

It is absolutely ludicrous that effective laws cannot be written so that people can come here legally. It is ludicrous that there is something like a fifteen year waiting list for US visas in Brazil. It is absolutely insane that in the melting pot of world cultures we cannot find a way to make the democracy and freedom that we so prize and idolize available to all.

Just. Ludicrous.

My best wishes go out to Ms Martinez and her family. Shame on you, ICE.