But Jay Tea, I thought you hated immigrants. After all, you are always saying how much they need to be deported and border security enhanced. You're just a meanie racist, so why are you hinting at sympathy for this Dominican woman? You're not fitting into the LefTrolls image of a right-winger - stop that! It's confusing!

/sarcasm

The headline writer (perhaps not the same person as the *Democrat talking* points:

"A besieged mother wonders how to put her children first"

Hence my distrust for members of my own gender when it comes to logic, common sense and objectivity. The author is a woman, all of the women reading the story will be up in arms about the poor Mommy being taken advantage of by The Man, and I already know what the candidate to be the first woman U.S. President will have to say. Too many women think this way, and it drives me batshit crazy!

Jay Tea: I just fired this letter off to the story's "reporter" ...

Seriously, Ms. Wen, does that headline bear even a passing resemblance to what this article is about? Might not you have reported pertinent details regarding the charges in Ms. Nunez's case? Instead,you turned a story about an immigrant facing criminal charges into an elegy to a 'poor Mommy facing deportation at the hands of The Man'. There are many important factors here that would enable your readers to decide whether or not they support Ms. Nunez or the State of New Hampshire -- mitigating circumstances, aggravating circumstances, etc. Instead, you have chosen to report nothing of substance. Rather than doing the job of a reporter/journalist, you have rendered yourself merely an activist/advocate. In that sense you have done your readers (and your subject) a disservice.

"She didn't seek out the opportunity to get into the faked documents business; she was set up and ratted out by a "friend" who had been caught with fake papers, and was cooperating with police to ease her own punishment.

But that doesn't mitigate the fact that when asked, she not only knew where to get her hands on fake papers, but actually obtained them for the so-called friend. She had the choice of getting involved or not in illegal activity, and she made the wrong choice."

Talk about deja-vu. Sounds a lot like the two muslims in Albany caught in a sting a while back. They got a lowlife to pretend to be a weapons dealer or something like that and he went to this guy that attended a local mosque headed by an imam whose name kept turning up in address books in terrorist training camps and terror-supporting organizations (all coincidences, his lawyer kept telling the press). Long story short - they got the first guy to bring in the imam on the deal as his witness or backer or whatever (some muslim thing they took advantage of), the guy flashes what is called, on camera in front of the two, a missile launcher that is going to be used for the express purpose, they are told, of bringing down a loaded airliner so that a certain passenger is killed. All they had to do was front the money for the weapon and resell it to the user and they'd make a fat profit, loaded jet notwithstanding. Anyway, no missile launcher, no plot, just a sting and they were both convicted. They tried to claim they didn't know what they were putting money up for, but apparently it was on tape, them being told what it was and what it was for. The fluent-in-english imam suddenly didn't understand english very well. Like you say, they had a choice to just say 'no' or better yet call the cops and report the guy. Instead they agreed to go in on it. Of course liberal rallies for the two immediately followed - even though they were caught redhanded going along with a terror plot (albeit fake, they didn't know that) instead of calling the cops. Maybe someday we'll have conservatives rallying in support of someone like these people that do the right thing. Maybe.

langtry,

Most of the time, reporters don't write the headline. Editors do. FYI

mantis is correct about headlines. In fact, when breaking stories get added to the page at the deadline, headlines can get squeezed or changed at the last minute to bear no resemblance to either the original header OR the story (that doesn't appear to be what happened here, though).

While I tend to be sympathetic with those facing severe punishments that seem not to fit the crime, trafficking in fake documents is very serious. I agree with Jay that the "accommodation" factor is very important here. If she was merely trying to help a friend (who then gave her up when caught), and not doing it for profit, I would tend to be lenient - BUT, only if she cooperates fully.

No cooperation - and I don't care if it's her own mother making the fakes - means a one-way ticket outta here.

~~~~~~~

The other case brings up a point about our sex crimes laws. I checked the sex crime registry maintained by the state for my county, and found a young man who lives about two miles down the road listed. He's in his early 30s, and his crime involves a minor.

However, I remember this case. When he was 19, and his girlfriend was 15, her parents found out and insisted he be arrested, which he was. They later got married - and yet, a decade later, his name and address and mug shot are still showing on the sex offender registry.

The more cases like his that clog up the list, the harder it becomes to find real threats.