Letters: Illegal immigrants face what runaway slaves did
Posted on Sat, Apr. 10, 2010
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/90451109.html
It seems that many people who oppose immigration reform do so because it might allow those here illegally to be given a path to legal residency. They say that those who have consciously broken a law of our country should be punished, not rewarded.
One hundred and sixty years ago, Congress passed a law that also dealt with people who were in certain states illegally. It was called the Fugitive Slave Law.
U.S. marshals in the free states of the North were required by law to round up any person who was suspected of having escaped from slavery in the South. A citizen in a free state such as Pennsylvania could be jailed for assisting a runaway slave in any way.
Rev. Sturgis Poorman
Bryn Mawr
[Posted by Ida Micaily]
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