Ghosts of 1996

[davidinalameda]

http://www.nysun.com/article/70745

One of Senator Clinton's biggest struggles in the Democratic presidential campaign has been overcoming her vote in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war, but among certain liberal elites some of the biggest ghosts she is battling date back to 1996.

Facing re-election that year, President Clinton signed a series of bills getting tough on crime, immigration, and gay marriage. The tack to the right may have helped guarantee Mr. Clinton another term in the White House, but the tactics outraged some liberals.

One hot topic then and now is immigration. The Republican Congress was eager to take action on the issue and passed a series of measures, some of which Mr. Clinton resisted.

One he signed in 1996 was the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which called for automatic deportation of legal immigrants convicted of certain crimes. The measure has a common-sense appeal, but eliminating judicial review of individual cases also has had some bizarre results. Longterm residents of America have been automatically deported after being convicted of crimes like urinating in public or writing a bad check for $19. Dozens of troubled youths, known as the Lost Boys of Cambodia, have been sent back to that troubled country even though they spent most or all their entire lives in America and often speak not a word of Khmer.