an excerpt from the nytimes of February 19, 2010
Judge Keeps His Word to Immigrant Who Kept His, By NINA BERNSTEIN
The judge and the juvenile had grown up on the same mean streets, 40 years apart. And in fall 1996, they faced each other in a New York court where children are prosecuted as adults, but sentenced like candidates for redemption.
The teenager, a gifted student, was pleading guilty to a string of muggings committed at 15 with an eclectic crew in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The judge, who remembered the pitfalls of Little Italy in the 1950s, urged him to use his sentence — three to nine years in a reformatory — as a chance to turn his life around.
“If you do that, I am here to stand behind you,” the judge, Michael A. Corriero, promised. The youth, Qing Hong Wu, vowed to change.
Mr. Wu kept his word. He was a model inmate, earning release after three years. He became the main support of his immigrant mother, studying and working his way up from data entry clerk to vice president for Internet technology at a national company.
But almost 15 years after his crimes, by applying for citizenship, Mr. Wu, 29, came to the attention of immigration authorities in a parallel law enforcement system that makes no allowances for rehabilitation. He was abruptly locked up in November as a “criminal alien,” subject to mandatory deportation to China — the nation he left at 5, when his family immigrated legally to the United States.
Now Judge Corriero, 67, retired from the bench, is trying to keep his side of the bargain.
“Mr. Wu earned his second chance,” the judge wrote in a letter supporting a petition to Gov. David A. Paterson for a pardon that would erase Mr. Wu’s criminal record and stop the deportation proceedings. “He should have the opportunity to remain in this country.”
The letter is one of dozens of testimonials, including appeals from Mr. Wu’s fiance, mother and sisters, who are all citizens; from the Police Benevolent Association, where Mr. Wu used to work; and from his employers at the Centerline Capital Group, a real estate financial and management company, where his boss, Tom Pope, calls Mr. Wu “a shining star.”
But under laws enacted in 1996, the same year Mr. Wu was sentenced, the immigration judge hearing the deportation case has no discretion to consider any of it. For Mr. Wu, who remains in a cell in the Monmouth County Correctional Institute in Freehold, N.J., the best hope may be that the Manhattan district attorney will retroactively allow him the “youthful offender” status that would scrub his record clean.
“The law is so inflexible,” said Judge Corriero, now executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City and the author of “Judging Children as Children: A Proposal for a Juvenile Justice System.” The 2006 book calls for a justice system that reduces future crime rates by nurturing those who can learn from their mistakes, instead of turning them into career criminals.
Some of Judge Corriero's 6th ward childhood friends and former neighbors have a different view
Mikey "Black" Corriero must be getting senile in his old age. And to think I shared a firescape with him at 134 White Street.
And this is the typical NY Times liberal BS story. Grieve for the criminal, because it fits in with our left wing philosophy. No wonder the newspaper is going out of business. Writing crap like this.
There are about a million illegal Chinese, just in NY City. They should all be, by law, deported back to China. Like last week. There is absolutely no rationale for not doing so. But no, let us grieve for this poor unfortunate immigrant, who was forced into a life of crime, supposedly rehabilitated himself, then told he had to go back to China. Boo hoo. All bull. This guy didn't belong in America in the first place. He came here ILLEGALLY!!! Sending him back is no tragedy. It's the right thing to do. The legal thing to do. He'll get no tears from me. As for Mikey Black, time has shown he's certainly a good man. A very good man. His distinguished career speaks for itself. In this matter, his heart was in the right place, if not his head.
Joe Bruno
a reaction to Joe's opinion from a known source who wishes to remain anonymous
You are right, it was a good hearted but misguided judgement. There has to be a complete mind set change for too many. Illegals (not undocumented) have to be treated as priority law breakers, NOT as a state of being. The times are too dangerous and economically tenuous to tolerate a drip invasion of our country. The funny part is that putting an end to it is easy:
1) Issue biometric work cards to those illegals who have jobs and no criminal offenses. They would remain temporary workers and not have a "path to citizenship." Their offspring born here would have to apply for full citizenship at sixteen years old.
2) Fine anyone who hires someone without a card $10,000 for a first offense per person, then more.
3) Build detention centers with hearing facilities for illegals in Nome, Alaska. Too cold? Boo hoo. Can't get visits? Boo hoo.
Believe me, they will go home on their own.
Joe follow's up
This issue was especially sensitive to me, since hundreds of Italians were forced out of Little Italy all though the 60's to the 80's. The Chinese bought the buildings on Mulberry and the surrounding streets, then tripled the rent, forcing the Italians to move to places like Knickerbocker Village, Chatham Green, Chatham Towers, Southbridge Towers and Independence Plaza. Then the apartments in Little Italy were filled with Chinese illegal immigrants, sometimes 20 people to a 2-bedroom apartment. There was nothing but mattresses on the floors in all the rooms, including the kitchen. I know personally of about a dozen Italian/American families that were forced to relocate. And it's especially crushing for me, that one of us, former Judge Michael Corriero, who lived next door to me at 134 White Street (I lived with my parents in apartment 21, his family lived in apartment 22), is spearheading this move to keep an illegal, Chinese immigrant, who by the way, turned to a life of crime, in our country. I know he means well, but his actions are a slap in the face to all of us who had to endure decades of the Chinese crowding us out of our own neighborhood.
And I like your suggestions. They could work. The problem is, most of these illegals work, off the books, in one of the hundreds of Chinese restaurants in the Lower East Side. As far as the government is concerned, they don't even exist. And many of them are part of the Chinese organized crime syndicate, which specializes in shaking down legitimate Chinese businesses, among other things. The Chinese are very smart. They keep their mouths shut and keep to themselves. This allows them to continue to do what they are doing, under the radar of our legal system.
A follow up:
The opinions expressed above, i.e. after the Times' article, were not those of blog writer. I published them to show the other points of view that existed and still exist in the neighborhood. An anonymous commentator follows up mentioning that "it is disturbing to read such comments on a website dedicated to objective history and nonjudgmental observations." I'm flattered, but the objective history is such that these differences of opinion exist.
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