Is this justice and compassion or bureaucracy in action

There are untold millions of illegal aliens in the US that the government turns a blind eye to and then there is this. What happened to compassion, justice and good sense.
The volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat had been slumbering for centuries when it awoke in 1995. Amid the banana groves and breadfruit trees of their tourist paradise, the islanders hoped that its eruptions would soon subside. Instead, within two years, 7,000 people - roughly two-thirds of the population - had to flee escalating explosions of rock, ash and toxic gas..
Most went to other Caribbean islands or to Britain, which had colonized Montserrat in the 17th century and still governs it. Fewer than 300 ended up in the United States, mostly living with relatives in New York and Boston. Because it was unsafe to send them back after their visitors' visas expired, the U.S. government granted them Montserratians "temporary protected status," renewed year by year so the Montserratians could legally stay and work until the worst was over..
Now, in a startling twist that reflects a major change in immigration politics, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering the 292 Montserratians to leave by the end of February - not because it is safe to go home again, but because it is not going to be safe anytime soon..
"The volcanic activity causing the environmental disaster in Montserrat is not likely to cease in the foreseeable future," Homeland Security officials explained in a June 25 notice that ends Montserratians' temporary protected status effective Feb. 27, 2005..
"Therefore it no longer constitutes a temporary disruption of living conditions that temporarily prevents Montserrat from adequately handling the return of its nationals.".
The decision has stunned islanders who rebuilt their lives in America from scratch..
"It's devastating," said Sarah Ryner, 59, a public health nurse supervisor who lost her home and career in the volcanic aftermath, and now works night shifts at a New Jersey hospital. "I'm just frozen, and my children are the same. We are saying: What can we do? Where can we go?".
Homeland Security officials have an answer: Move to England..
Montserrat is one of Britain's last overseas territories. Many of its people are descendants of the African slaves and Irish penal deportees sent to toil there 400 years ago. Citing scientific estimates that dangerous volcanic activity is likely to continue for at least 20 years, and for perhaps as long as a couple of centuries, the Homeland Security notice advises those who choose not to return to the devastated island to consider exercising their claims to British citizenship and relocating to the motherland..
The notice also took the British government by surprise. At the British consulate in New York and the United Kingdom government office on Montserrat last week, press officers said they were not prepared to answer questions about the prospects of British residency for Montserratians like Ryner; her son Craig Ryner, 35, now a New York subway station agent raising three New York-born children; or her divorced daughter, Pearl Ryner, 39, a teacher turned medical technologist. British officials are asking the U.S. government for more information, press officers said..
Pearl Ryner's 14-year-old son Khorri Silcott, who was 7 when he left the island, remembers half a dozen terrifying evacuations from the encroaching volcano before he and his grandmother could join his mother and his uncle in New York. When his grandfather tried to follow, it was too late, the family said; the window for "temporary protected status" had closed, and Khorri's grandfather was repeatedly denied a visa to the United States before he died of stomach cancer at 60, alone in England..
"I'm really worried right now," Khorri said. "It's like they're just kicking you out after you worked so hard.".
A spokesman for Homeland Security, William Strassberger, acknowledged that, in other cases, temporary protected status had ended only when a crisis was over - for Bosnians after the genocidal war stopped, for example, or for El Salvadorans when hurricane damage was cleaned up. Currently, people from Burundi, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan have protected status..
"The fact is, temporary protected status is not meant to be a permanent solution," Strassberger said. "In this particular case there is no end in sight." Except for a handful of Montserratians already sponsored for green cards through marriage to a U.S. citizen, he said, those losing protection have no way to convert to legal residency before the February deadline..
No one is more upset by this turn of events than Vera Weekes, who lived for years in England and worked on Montserrat as director of education in the 1980s before moving to New York and becoming a U.S. citizen. She spent years lobbying for a bill that would permanently legalize the Montserratians, only to see it stall when immigration policy changed after Sept. 11, 2001..
"It's heartless," said Weekes, the assistant director of the Caribbean Research Center at Medgar Evers College at City University of New York. "It's unbelievable. We're talking about 292 people who have been here for eight years, who have settled, who are working.".
The sponsor of the bill for the Montserratians, Major Owens, a Democratic representative from New York, reintroduced it last year. But he said the bill was unlikely to emerge from a subcommittee in the current political climate..
Before the volcanic eruptions of Soufriere Hills began, Montserrat was a favorite vacation spot of the rich and famous. When its dormant volcano turned deadly, the world watched in prime time as paradise met inferno..
Now, with Montserrat buried in volcanic rubble, and with color-coded volcano alerts warning of new eruptions, there is little enthusiasm on the 11-by-17-kilometer, or seven-by-11-mile, island for the return of the 292 expatriates and the children who are American citizens by virtue of their having been born in the United States..
"That certainly would be a problem," said Keith Stone-Greaves, press officer for the local government, "given that housing is critical." He and his counterpart at the British government office on the island, Richard Aspin, agreed that the Homeland Security decision had taken everyone by surprise..
Aspin said he himself had to inform the British, after stumbling on the notice on the Internet the day after it was posted. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I read it," he added. "What do they want us to do, send these people into shelters?".
Whether Montserratians who fail to leave the United States before the deadline will be deported to the beleaguered island or sent elsewhere remains unclear. Dan Kane, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which controls protected status, referred the question to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Homeland Security branch responsible for deportation; there, a spokeswoman said the issue had not yet come up..
The New York Times

The volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat had been slumbering for centuries when it awoke in 1995. Amid the banana groves and breadfruit trees of their tourist paradise, the islanders hoped that its eruptions would soon subside. Instead, within two years, 7,000 people - roughly two-thirds of the population - had to flee escalating explosions of rock, ash and toxic gas..
Most went to other Caribbean islands or to Britain, which had colonized Montserrat in the 17th century and still governs it. Fewer than 300 ended up in the United States, mostly living with relatives in New York and Boston. Because it was unsafe to send them back after their visitors' visas expired, the U.S. government granted them Montserratians "temporary protected status," renewed year by year so the Montserratians could legally stay and work until the worst was over..
Now, in a startling twist that reflects a major change in immigration politics, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering the 292 Montserratians to leave by the end of February - not because it is safe to go home again, but because it is not going to be safe anytime soon..
"The volcanic activity causing the environmental disaster in Montserrat is not likely to cease in the foreseeable future," Homeland Security officials explained in a June 25 notice that ends Montserratians' temporary protected status effective Feb. 27, 2005..
"Therefore it no longer constitutes a temporary disruption of living conditions that temporarily prevents Montserrat from adequately handling the return of its nationals.".
The decision has stunned islanders who rebuilt their lives in America from scratch..
"It's devastating," said Sarah Ryner, 59, a public health nurse supervisor who lost her home and career in the volcanic aftermath, and now works night shifts at a New Jersey hospital. "I'm just frozen, and my children are the same. We are saying: What can we do? Where can we go?".
Homeland Security officials have an answer: Move to England..
Montserrat is one of Britain's last overseas territories. Many of its people are descendants of the African slaves and Irish penal deportees sent to toil there 400 years ago. Citing scientific estimates that dangerous volcanic activity is likely to continue for at least 20 years, and for perhaps as long as a couple of centuries, the Homeland Security notice advises those who choose not to return to the devastated island to consider exercising their claims to British citizenship and relocating to the motherland..
The notice also took the British government by surprise. At the British consulate in New York and the United Kingdom government office on Montserrat last week, press officers said they were not prepared to answer questions about the prospects of British residency for Montserratians like Ryner; her son Craig Ryner, 35, now a New York subway station agent raising three New York-born children; or her divorced daughter, Pearl Ryner, 39, a teacher turned medical technologist. British officials are asking the U.S. government for more information, press officers said..
Pearl Ryner's 14-year-old son Khorri Silcott, who was 7 when he left the island, remembers half a dozen terrifying evacuations from the encroaching volcano before he and his grandmother could join his mother and his uncle in New York. When his grandfather tried to follow, it was too late, the family said; the window for "temporary protected status" had closed, and Khorri's grandfather was repeatedly denied a visa to the United States before he died of stomach cancer at 60, alone in England..
"I'm really worried right now," Khorri said. "It's like they're just kicking you out after you worked so hard.".
A spokesman for Homeland Security, William Strassberger, acknowledged that, in other cases, temporary protected status had ended only when a crisis was over - for Bosnians after the genocidal war stopped, for example, or for El Salvadorans when hurricane damage was cleaned up. Currently, people from Burundi, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan have protected status..
"The fact is, temporary protected status is not meant to be a permanent solution," Strassberger said. "In this particular case there is no end in sight." Except for a handful of Montserratians already sponsored for green cards through marriage to a U.S. citizen, he said, those losing protection have no way to convert to legal residency before the February deadline..
No one is more upset by this turn of events than Vera Weekes, who lived for years in England and worked on Montserrat as director of education in the 1980s before moving to New York and becoming a U.S. citizen. She spent years lobbying for a bill that would permanently legalize the Montserratians, only to see it stall when immigration policy changed after Sept. 11, 2001..
"It's heartless," said Weekes, the assistant director of the Caribbean Research Center at Medgar Evers College at City University of New York. "It's unbelievable. We're talking about 292 people who have been here for eight years, who have settled, who are working.".
The sponsor of the bill for the Montserratians, Major Owens, a Democratic representative from New York, reintroduced it last year. But he said the bill was unlikely to emerge from a subcommittee in the current political climate..
Before the volcanic eruptions of Soufriere Hills began, Montserrat was a favorite vacation spot of the rich and famous. When its dormant volcano turned deadly, the world watched in prime time as paradise met inferno..
Now, with Montserrat buried in volcanic rubble, and with color-coded volcano alerts warning of new eruptions, there is little enthusiasm on the 11-by-17-kilometer, or seven-by-11-mile, island for the return of the 292 expatriates and the children who are American citizens by virtue of their having been born in the United States..
"That certainly would be a problem," said Keith Stone-Greaves, press officer for the local government, "given that housing is critical." He and his counterpart at the British government office on the island, Richard Aspin, agreed that the Homeland Security decision had taken everyone by surprise..
Aspin said he himself had to inform the British, after stumbling on the notice on the Internet the day after it was posted. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I read it," he added. "What do they want us to do, send these people into shelters?".
Whether Montserratians who fail to leave the United States before the deadline will be deported to the beleaguered island or sent elsewhere remains unclear. Dan Kane, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which controls protected status, referred the question to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Homeland Security branch responsible for deportation; there, a spokeswoman said the issue had not yet come up..
The New York Times

The volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat had been slumbering for centuries when it awoke in 1995. Amid the banana groves and breadfruit trees of their tourist paradise, the islanders hoped that its eruptions would soon subside. Instead, within two years, 7,000 people - roughly two-thirds of the population - had to flee escalating explosions of rock, ash and toxic gas..
Most went to other Caribbean islands or to Britain, which had colonized Montserrat in the 17th century and still governs it. Fewer than 300 ended up in the United States, mostly living with relatives in New York and Boston. Because it was unsafe to send them back after their visitors' visas expired, the U.S. government granted them Montserratians "temporary protected status," renewed year by year so the Montserratians could legally stay and work until the worst was over..
Now, in a startling twist that reflects a major change in immigration politics, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering the 292 Montserratians to leave by the end of February - not because it is safe to go home again, but because it is not going to be safe anytime soon..
"The volcanic activity causing the environmental disaster in Montserrat is not likely to cease in the foreseeable future," Homeland Security officials explained in a June 25 notice that ends Montserratians' temporary protected status effective Feb. 27, 2005..
"Therefore it no longer constitutes a temporary disruption of living conditions that temporarily prevents Montserrat from adequately handling the return of its nationals.".
The decision has stunned islanders who rebuilt their lives in America from scratch..
"It's devastating," said Sarah Ryner, 59, a public health nurse supervisor who lost her home and career in the volcanic aftermath, and now works night shifts at a New Jersey hospital. "I'm just frozen, and my children are the same. We are saying: What can we do? Where can we go?".
Homeland Security officials have an answer: Move to England..
Montserrat is one of Britain's last overseas territories. Many of its people are descendants of the African slaves and Irish penal deportees sent to toil there 400 years ago. Citing scientific estimates that dangerous volcanic activity is likely to continue for at least 20 years, and for perhaps as long as a couple of centuries, the Homeland Security notice advises those who choose not to return to the devastated island to consider exercising their claims to British citizenship and relocating to the motherland..
The notice also took the British government by surprise. At the British consulate in New York and the United Kingdom government office on Montserrat last week, press officers said they were not prepared to answer questions about the prospects of British residency for Montserratians like Ryner; her son Craig Ryner, 35, now a New York subway station agent raising three New York-born children; or her divorced daughter, Pearl Ryner, 39, a teacher turned medical technologist. British officials are asking the U.S. government for more information, press officers said..
Pearl Ryner's 14-year-old son Khorri Silcott, who was 7 when he left the island, remembers half a dozen terrifying evacuations from the encroaching volcano before he and his grandmother could join his mother and his uncle in New York. When his grandfather tried to follow, it was too late, the family said; the window for "temporary protected status" had closed, and Khorri's grandfather was repeatedly denied a visa to the United States before he died of stomach cancer at 60, alone in England..
"I'm really worried right now," Khorri said. "It's like they're just kicking you out after you worked so hard.".
A spokesman for Homeland Security, William Strassberger, acknowledged that, in other cases, temporary protected status had ended only when a crisis was over - for Bosnians after the genocidal war stopped, for example, or for El Salvadorans when hurricane damage was cleaned up. Currently, people from Burundi, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan have protected status..
"The fact is, temporary protected status is not meant to be a permanent solution," Strassberger said. "In this particular case there is no end in sight." Except for a handful of Montserratians already sponsored for green cards through marriage to a U.S. citizen, he said, those losing protection have no way to convert to legal residency before the February deadline..
No one is more upset by this turn of events than Vera Weekes, who lived for years in England and worked on Montserrat as director of education in the 1980s before moving to New York and becoming a U.S. citizen. She spent years lobbying for a bill that would permanently legalize the Montserratians, only to see it stall when immigration policy changed after Sept. 11, 2001..
"It's heartless," said Weekes, the assistant director of the Caribbean Research Center at Medgar Evers College at City University of New York. "It's unbelievable. We're talking about 292 people who have been here for eight years, who have settled, who are working.".
The sponsor of the bill for the Montserratians, Major Owens, a Democratic representative from New York, reintroduced it last year. But he said the bill was unlikely to emerge from a subcommittee in the current political climate..
Before the volcanic eruptions of Soufriere Hills began, Montserrat was a favorite vacation spot of the rich and famous. When its dormant volcano turned deadly, the world watched in prime time as paradise met inferno..
Now, with Montserrat buried in volcanic rubble, and with color-coded volcano alerts warning of new eruptions, there is little enthusiasm on the 11-by-17-kilometer, or seven-by-11-mile, island for the return of the 292 expatriates and the children who are American citizens by virtue of their having been born in the United States..
"That certainly would be a problem," said Keith Stone-Greaves, press officer for the local government, "given that housing is critical." He and his counterpart at the British government office on the island, Richard Aspin, agreed that the Homeland Security decision had taken everyone by surprise..
Aspin said he himself had to inform the British, after stumbling on the notice on the Internet the day after it was posted. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I read it," he added. "What do they want us to do, send these people into shelters?".
Whether Montserratians who fail to leave the United States before the deadline will be deported to the beleaguered island or sent elsewhere remains unclear. Dan Kane, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which controls protected status, referred the question to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Homeland Security branch responsible for deportation; there, a spokeswoman said the issue had not yet come