Our immigration system is broken

To the editor:

A news item in the March 10 Gazette indicated that U.S. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials had 'rounded up” about 2,000 people 'to show that agents are still aggressive about enforcement at a time of declining deportations”. One of the victims of that raid was from Iowa City, Pastor Max Villatoro of the Hispanic congregation at First Mennonite Church.

At 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 3, ICE officials knocked on the door of Villatoro's home and took him away, without allowing him to say goodbye to his wife and children.

Villatoro has been in this country for many years; his four children are American citizens and were born here. If he is deported, the Iowa City community will lose a wonderful citizen and faith leader, his church will lose its pastor and a man of God, and most importantly, his family's unity will be gone and his wife will be left to try to support herself and her four children. What is the point? He is not a criminal. He is not a drug dealer. He is a father, a community leader, a minister.

The whole immigrant acceptance system in the United States is so broken with its quotas of what countries and how many we will accept from each country, which was used up by the Central American countries many years ago. What a mockery of our Pledge of Allegiance - one Nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Kay Graber

Cedar Rapids