Home of Today's Common Sense

Published – Brownsville Herald August 26, 2007 

Perhaps those of you who follow my columns will remember my description of the problems faced by a legal resident to secure citizenship and the help provided by the offices of Congressman Ortiz. The final or should I say beginning chapter was written on Wednesday when one our newest U.S. Citizens pledged her oath of citizenship and then promptly afterwards registered to vote. I took the opportunity to attend the Citizenship ceremony and can recommend it to get your patriotic juices flowing again. I have found that many of us who follow the political activities can become jaded and view our rights and obligations as citizens quite casually. After seeing the wide eyed optimism of the new citizens first hand and the genuine pride in the eyes of some pretty hard bitten veteran bureaucrats, I came away with a brighter outlook to the future. I would recommend that each elected official make a point of being present at the ceremonies on a regular basis.  More »

Published – Brownsville Herald August 12,2007

In my article entitled “Immigration – A real fix or just another piece of cotton candy” that was published on these pages on March 25, 2007 I wrote “ …….. this legislation seems to add numerous layers of bureaucracy and perhaps hundreds of jobs to clog the system even more and little effort made to rehabilitate an immigration system that can lose records for months and years where in at least one case the lost papers have left a potential new citizen in limbo for months after completing all the requirements for citizenship. There appears to be little or no oversight and no way to seek recourse.” At least this once, in the case I was describing, there is to be a happy ending, and a demonstration that there is, in Brownsville, an advocate for the “regular folks”. 

While I was discussing the situation in preparation to writing the earlier article, I suggested that perhaps Congressman Ortiz’s office could help.  More »