So in case you’ve missed it, there’s a manhunt going on for one of the two suspected Boston Marathon bombers after a firefight between the suspects and police left one of the alleged bombers dead.
The remaining suspect is 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed last night in a shootout with police, following a series of events that supposedly included a disturbance at a convenience store, the death of an MIT university police officer and the carjacking (and hostage taking) of a man in Cambridge, Mass.
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are Chechen immigrants, and have lived in the United States since either 2002 or 2003, according to NBC News.
The revelation that these two are immigrants who have been in this country for at least nine years must figure into the immigration debate, apparently, according to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley:
“Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system,” Grassley, the committee’s senior Republican, said in his opening statement. “How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the United States? How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill?”
It’s a fair argument, I’ll admit — I mean, people could harm us. Why should we not protect ourselves by looking deeper into their background to ensure that there’s nothing they might do to hurt people within this country?
New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the writer of the bill, contended with Grassley’s argument, saying that the events in Boston shouldn’t be tied to this immigration bill.
“In general, we’re a safer country when law enforcement knows who is here,” and has photos and background checks, Schumer added — steps that would be taken in regard to the 11 million people here illegally under the legislation Schumer sponsored with seven other senators.
Schumer also said the U.S. refugee and asylum programs have been “significantly strengthened” in the past five years so that authorities are more careful about screening people coming into the country, but he said if that more changes are needed, he’s committed to making them.
This article appears in Apr 18-24, 2013.
Does anyone else find this too convenient that this attack and following shooting death of a teacher and shootout are obviously going to tie into Immigration and Gun Control, the two biggest current political debates?
It all just stinks to high heaven with me.
Yea, we should stop all those 9 year old kids at the border, because one of them might grow up to be a bomber. Hey, that’s a good argument for abortion, too!
Of course — xenophobia rules….
Yes, it’s amazing to me that, knowing what they know now, they are still trying to go forward with this insane immigration reform. Hopefully more intelligent views will prevail.
What bothers me so is how the US sees these issues at merely their surface level and not at the possible underlining issues. People want a chance here, they come form countries that don’t even have water and clean food to eat; starve and die in the streets and dump yards. We are an over abundant country that throws away tons of resources a day. These people are forced to make a statement. Its terrible how they choose to do so, but they are doing what perhaps they only know how from their lack of humanity they learned through our own social conditioning and being ignored by their own people and us too. These events with shooting and bombs is not about weapons and immigration, its about humanitarianism…they want to make people care.