Monday, October 1, 2007

What part of "illegal immigration" don't we get?

We fret over a wide variety of problems associated with illegal immigration problems and continue to tie ourselves into legal and emotional knots while disregarding the fundamental issues: the "illegal" aspect of most of these issues. Without regarding every problem, and thus every solution, from the basic perspective of "legal versus illegal"we will never reach any real solutions. No matter how compassionate we may feel about a poor illegal immigrant's plight, the bottom line remains that he is ILLEGAL. Any proposed solution must start from that premise.

Any real solutions must also involve as active partners any law enforcement entity: municipal, county, state and federal. Protecting citizens and upholding the law should be the only consideration here, no matter which law enforcement entity encounters illegals. I simply don't see any circumstance under which a law officer can justify not checking into the status of a suspect engaged in any violation. Not upholding the law in any and all cases violates a law enforcement professional's oath - something that cannot be dictated by local policies.

Self-declared sanctuary communities are part of the problem, certainly not the solution: by keeping their law enforcement officials from participating in solving illegal activities, by saddling their citizens with funding of benefits for illegals, and by denying the enforcement of federal immigration laws in their jurisdictions while continuing to accept federal funding.

Legislators have shown little ability or willingness to tackle these problem in a comprehensive way, nor has the judiciary been particularly effective. Let's all become part of the solution rather than adding to the problem!