Today's NY Times

Front page there was a story on an immigration agent accused of demanding sexual favours for a green card.

As an opponent of illegals, I am all for the enforcement of immigration law. But, this story perhaps hits at one of the ugly undersides of current immigration policy and how legal immigration status is granted, especially in the case where a person illegally comes to America, meets a mate and gets married in order to seek full legal status.

The agent in question was audiotaped demanding oral sex in his automobile by a woman who felt threatened and didn't feel she could go to the immigration top leaders, so she took her tape and story directly to the Times. It's a sad story of this one man's ability to influence her case and acceptance into this country with the green card status.

In the Garden City, N.Y., office of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, this agent has handled some 8,000 cases during his 3 years in "service." These people are paid a decent wage (perhaps not great if one lives in NYC though) at $50,000 per year and get government benefits I'm sure.

The sad part is, this agent is apparently an immigrant himself. How sad and pathetic. This clearly needs to be look at and the system made need to have further ethical checks and balances put into it to continue it's overall efficacy without having people abuse what is quite a bit of power.