“Sanctuary” Law Kills Three
By Mitch Berg
In the past few years, as the nation has slowly and ineffectually come to grips with the illegal immigration problem, several left-of-center cities have, with a flurry of misplace self-righteousness, enacted “sanctuary city” laws, instructing their police not to check the immigration status of people they contacted on other police matters. “We don’t pay our police to be immigration officers” was a common quote from the various officials involved – introducing the question “do we pay you to be child support enforcers or collections officers for the car insurance industry?”, or, more on-point, “aren’t laws laws, to be enforced pretty much across the board?”
At any rate, I’m sure you’ve heard the news – the three college students executed in Newark were allegedly shot by a man who’d been picked up on another crime – but not held, since Newark was one of the self-righteous cities that was above all of that persecution:
Jose Carranza, an illegal immigrant from Peru, was indicted twice this year: 31 counts surrounding the alleged sexual assault of a child, and nine stemming from a bar fight
August 15th, 2007 at 6:21 am
It’s not just the misguided “sanctuary” laws, it’s our unwillingness/inability to put people who need to be in prison where they belong and keep them there.
August 15th, 2007 at 6:23 am
The problem isn’t that the guy is an immigrant. The problem is that he’s a criminal who wasn’t held on the earlier violent criminal charges. But it’s fun to watch Republicans tear themselves up over immigration. Your reflexive nativism continues to prevent the party from picking up all those Hispanic votes.
August 15th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Kermit observed: “It’s not just the misguided “sanctuary” laws, it’s our unwillingness/inability to put people who need to be in prison where they belong and keep them there.”
Good impulse, Kerm, but you righties always forget the part where you have to give people a fair trial before you “keep them there.” Still, the decision to let a guy charged with serious violent felonies and foreign nationality walk the streets of Newark pending trial says much more about the breakdown of law and order in that town than about the need for tougher immigration enforcement.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:00 am
angryclown said:
“you righties always forget the part where you have to give people a fair trial”
Is it exclusively a “rightie” problem angryclown? Please feel free to pull some statistics out of…the air.
angryclown also said:
“tougher immigration enforcement”
By “tougher” do you mean “any” immigration enforcement? I mean, it is a “sanctuary city”, right?
I find it interesting that you write about the “breakdown of law and order” while seeming to advocate ignoring part of the “law” on the books already.
Do immigration laws seem immoral or unjust to you angryclown?
August 15th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Trojan”Do immigration laws seem immoral or unjust to you angryclown?”
Some of ’em, sure. Stupid and counterproductive, mostly. But then you wingnuts won’t sit still for any immigration reform that doesn’t involve putting people on cattle cars headed for the border.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:50 am
This must be a really tough issue for the right to deal with. On one hand you have a source for cheap labor which serves the secondary purpose of driving down the prevailing wages for even non-immigrants as well as helping to dismantle organized labor but on the other hand you have illegal immigrants committing crimes and taking all the good parking spaces at Home Depot.
You guys really need to reexamine your priorities. Do you want someone who will re-shingle your roof for half of what a legit company will charge then disappear or do you want someone who will run around executing college students and raping kids?
August 15th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Do you want someone who will re-shingle your roof for half of what a legit company will charge then disappear or do you want someone who will run around executing college students and raping kids?
Perhaps you might want to reconsider whether that question is driven by thought or something else?
Me, I’d rather have the former, since you ask, if those are the two choices.
In a similar vein: would you like a not tasty meal for lunch today, or would you like to clamp your male genitalia in a vise, cover it with gasoline, and then light a match?
Choose wisely.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Doug really thinks that this is a priority choice that conservatives must reexamine?
“You guys really need to reexamine your priorities. Do you want someone who will re-shingle your roof for half of what a legit company will charge then disappear or do you want someone who will run around executing college students and raping kids? ”
Amazing
August 15th, 2007 at 9:24 am
This is where Rudy’s strategy in NYC was brilliant.
First, he made the city a sanctuary by forbiding city employees from inquiring into immigration status.
THEN, just when the illegals came out of the woodwork, he plungered the living shite out of ’em!
I bet that’s what he’s doing with Bin Laden. First, unlike that newbie Obama, Rudy won’t say we’ll go into Pakistan. THEN, when Bin Laden shows his ugly beard, Rudy will plunger the living shite out of ’em!
Islamo-fasciitis on a stick!
/jc
August 15th, 2007 at 9:29 am
“you righties always forget the part where you have to give people a fair trial”
Actually, Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill that did more to gut the rights of the accused than anything Bush has even proposed for American citizens.
Property forfeiture without trial?
If there’s a civil liberties heaven, Democrats should bring light skivvies to the afterlife.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:31 am
he plungered the living shite out of ‘em!
While I am trying to keep the conversation at a fairly high level, I gotta say, Slash – you seem to be focusing on plungers a lot lately.
There are two possible reasons for this; I have to hope that “I accidentally clogged the toilet with one of Slashito’s diapers” is the correct one.
(And then it occurs to me; Slashito is probably out of diapers, isn’t he? Oy. Time flies).
August 15th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Slashito is indeed out of diapers (except for overnight).
Slashita, however, is diapered, wiped, and ready for fun.
The Slashcicles remain on ice.
/jc
August 15th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Joelr said,
“Perhaps you might want to reconsider whether that question is driven by thought or something else?”
Perhaps you should refer to the title of this thread to discover the source of my snark.
And for the record, it’s pretty well established that the reason immigrants keep coming here illegally is for employment which is why my side has been advocating going after the employers who are hiring these people in the first place. You side seems to feel that the poor employers shouldn’t be punished for having made a few clerical errors when they hire these people.
The drive for higher profits, cheap labor and cheap crap on the store shelves created this problem. Blaming the entire illegal immigrant population for taking advantage of the opportunities being offered by employers while throwing in pieces of shit like Jose Carranza to make the story more dramatic may make you feel good but at the end of the day, it does nothing to solve the real problems that have been created by terrible economic/immigration policy.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Wow. Belated congrats on #2…
…er…
…well, you know.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
And for the record, it’s pretty well established that the reason immigrants keep coming here illegally is for employment which is why my side has been advocating going after the employers who are hiring these people in the first place.
It’s also been pretty well established that contrary to what the business-haters who have jumped onto the “let’s go after employers who hire illegal aliens” bandwagon would like to believe, most of the “employers” are (a) individual homeowners, (b) farmers, or (c) smaller companies that act as sub-contractors. In other words – the people who are generally exempt from most federal employment laws already because they’re so small and dispersed it’s darn near impossible to regulate them in any meaningful way.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Perhaps you should refer to the title of this thread to discover the source of my snark.
Sorry; doesn’t do it, any more than your Reverend Jim dichotomy (“Drug abuse or brain damage?”) does.
Immigrants come here for many reasons — both legally and illegally — and employment is certainly among them. My side — for which I am the only spokesman at all; I don’t speak for anybody else, either, except by coincidence, which is only fair — isn’t for punishing employers for clerical errors, but for willful violations of laws forbidding the hiring of illegals, as well as prompt and lawful deportation of illegals, better border security, careful reconsideration of the “anchor baby” principle and such derivative citizenship (even though that risks goring my own oxe, given that I’m the opposite of an anchor baby), a broad agreement that opposition to illegal immigration is a civic virtue as is an understanding that opposition to illegal immigration is not an opposition to immigration, etc.
But if you want to try to argue with that by posing a stupid dichotomous choice, as above, hell, have at it.
Free country.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Do you want someone who will re-shingle your roof for half of what a legit company will charge then disappear or do you want someone who will run around executing college students and raping kids? ”
I’ll take Option C: Legal immigrants, combined with sanctions (if only moral, although legal would be nice) against sanctimonious cities that bar their law enforcement from enforcing the law of the land.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
angryclown said:
“But then you wingnuts won’t sit still for any immigration reform that doesn’t involve putting people on cattle cars headed for the border”
I may not be fully aware of the current “wingnut” position on immigration, but I got the impression that it was more a “no amnesty without real border control”.
Is the current “moonbat” position on immigration “yes to amnesty, forget about border control”? Or is it still “mean people suck”? 😉
August 15th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
“my side has been advocating going after the employers who are hiring these people in the first place. ”
When did your side start doing that? When they had the raids on the meat packing plant, turned out the meat packing plant was following the government regulations on checking id’s. However, when the meat packing plant went above what was required they were sued by the government for discrimination. Driven by your side, I would imagine. Apparently you cant ask the people that don’t speak english for more documentation than what is minimally required.
August 15th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Illegals also come to this country for educational opportunities and for access to health care.
Doug, does your side advocate going after hospitals and schools for providing services to illegals? Why not?
August 15th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Yeah, what Buzz said!
When ICE raided the meat packing plant – and then again a few months ago, when ICE and several metro police departments busted a YUUUUGE prostitution ring that exploited Mexican and Central American women, most of whom were in the country illegally and were therefore easily exploitable, it was “your side”, Vobo, that was crying the loudest about the “civil rights”…
…of the women to come here to be exploited?
No! Of the “chilling effect” the raid would have on other…illegals!
“Your side”, I suspect, doesn’t really know WHAT it wants.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Angryclown doesn’t have a side and always knows what he wants.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Angryclown doesn’t have a side and always knows what he wants.
Seltzer water.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Ask ten conservatives what should be done about immigration and you get ten different answers. Ask a thousand liberals and you’ll always get the same answer; nothing.
Imagine there’s no countries! It’s easy if you try!
August 16th, 2007 at 5:57 am
Here’s where I have some — limited — agreement with those who don’t want their local law enforcement authorities enforcing immigration laws.
Illegals (err…. undocumented workers) are here, in great quantities (yes, I know that’s the problem) and are often victimized by criminals. When that happens, I don’t want the victim — or his or her friends, family, or acquaintances, even if they’re illegals, too — worried that if they call the police or testify in court against the criminal, they’ll be deported back to Mexico, Canada, Holland, or wherever they’re supposed to be.
The only way to avoid that is for the local authorities to only enforce federal law — arrest an illegal, say, and hold him or her for ICE — if they’ve reason to believe that he or she is the perp, in such circumstances, while letting the victim walk. (There then should be a sober calculation about the criminal, if he happens to be an illegal, too: better to put him in HennCo’s catch-and-release system — knowing that if, say, an accused mugger who is also an illegal makes bail, the Feds won’t snatch him up as he walks out of the courthouse and disappears — or let the Feds deport him. Depends, to me, on the situation.)
Otherwise, my city is going to be a magnet for even more criminals looking to prey on a vulnerable, second-class population, who don’t dare complain.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Joel,
A fair point.
Perhaps a “don’t ask, don’t tell unless they’re under arrest” policy would thread the needle appropriately for cities who are less hard-line than I am becoming?
August 17th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Even with that — and I think that would be an improvement, all in all — consider the risk from the POV of the illegal under the policy you postulate: do they dare have any contact with the police if they can avoid it? No contact; no arrest . . . somebody who is probably not overly educated (most illegals aren’t exactly) and whose experience with US authorities is one of avoidance can take a risk . . . or not.
The implications of both sanctuary and nonsanctuary policies are pretty horrible.
Just consider: “Hey, rapists — come on down to Minneapolis, and grab some Hispanic woman off the street. If she’s either illegal or she has friends or family who are, and you’re barely prosecutable if you’re caught on tape.”
Right now, the rapist might think, “Hey, not me. The local authorities don’t care if she’s an illegal; I’ll end up as some lifer’s shower toy.”
Change the rules; change the results.
That sort of thing isn’t just theory, by the way.
Note the horrible commonness of rape of Native American women by non-Indians on and near the reservations in OK. The res police can’t arrest non-Indians, nor can the res courts prosecute them — the only folks who can prosecute crimes by non-Indians that take place on the res are the Feds; the Feds, who normally hate prosecuting street crime anyway, aren’t focused on that, either. The res borders are as twisted and crooked as Robert Byrd’s soul, so it’s often difficult to tell where the line is, and the local authorities aren’t all that interested, either.
Result: it’s well-known that it’s safe for non-Indians to rape Indian women on or near the res, there, and a lot of that happens. Naturally, most non-Indian guys don’t do that (it isn’t the law that prevents nonscumbag men from being rapists, after all; it’s the “nonscumbag” part), but the world has never had a scumbag shortage.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:16 am
joelr informed: “Result: it’s well-known that it’s safe for non-Indians to rape Indian women on or near the res”
Gee Joel, you sure have a lot of information that’s useful only to aspiring rapists.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Gee, ac, maybe you should call up the “aspiring rapists” at NPR and tell them to stop covering the matter; that was the first place I heard about it. Or — better — see if you can get Keith Olbermann to break the news about the NPR aspiring rapists’ conspiracy. It’d be right up his . . . alley.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Wow, joelr, that was devastating. Especially the dot dot dot part. Angryclown won’t soon . . . forget that.
August 17th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
On the rare occasions that it’s possible to teach a nimrod like yourself something, clown, I’m happy to do so. For your next trick, you can learn the name of the “dot dot dot part.” It’s called an “ellipsis.”
Otherwise, it’s “bad clown; no cookie.”
August 19th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Don’t you mean “it’s . . . an ellipsis”? Makes it so much more . . . dramatic.