forbearance Q Certain Congressional leaders have said recently that the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") should use its discretion to not pursue deportations where the facts "call out for forbearance." They have a point, as a new horror story this week shows. Claudia Young is the German wife of an American, Rick Young. They live in Portland, Oregon. Or, rather, Rick and their young child do. Claudia is now back in Germany. On July 18, while she was nursing her year-old daughter, INS officers showed up and arrested her. She was handcuffed and chained, twice strip-searched, then deported and barred from returning to the US for 10 years. Why? Because she did not have the proper visa! An INS official in Portland said the law gave him no choice. He, of course, is a fool. A dangerous fool, because he is also a law enforcement official. Discretion, common sense, common decency, and forbearance are all factors that inform the law and should inform those who enforce it. Officials at INS headquarters in Washington, DC were distressed at the story. This sadly is uncommon for that Gestapo-like agency. A spokesman for the agency said "It won't happen again." And, he said, "We're ready to help Claudia Young come back." It is urgently necessary to remove a harsh, in fact unlawful, rigidity that persists in INS officers' ranks. They need to have it drummed into their heads that forebearance is a virtue. 000923 ... vituperus A Jackdaw, seeing some Doves in a cote abundantly provided with food, painted himself white and joined them in order to share their plentiful maintenance. The Doves, as long as he was silent, supposed him to be one of themselves and admitted him to their cote. But when one day he forgot himself and began to chatter, they discovered his true character and drove him forth, pecking him with their beaks. Failing to obtain food among the Doves, he returned to the Jackdaws. They too, not recognizing him on account of his color. expelled him from living with them. So desiring two ends, he obtained neither. 040503 what's it to you? who go blather from