ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION and REALITY

This is an interesting article from a local law enforcement officer:

As the horserace for the U.S. presidency ominously looms on the political horizon, I would like to share the following:

This is from a law enforcement officer, I implore everyone with a brain between their ears and a heart beating in their chest to resist the urge to succumb to the cheap rhetoric spewed by crooked politicians pandering for votes instead of being the statesmen and stateswomen they vowed to be. Let me get this out of the way from Jump Street here, I am neither a Republican, nor a Democrat. Neither party has lived up to their ideals in a way that would allow me to support either as such. I tend to be a both a realist and an idealist who – call me crazy – believes in what America stands for and in the U.S. Constitution.

FACT: Politicians really don't care one way or the other whether illegal immigrants have driver's licenses
-Why would they? They have chauffeurs and government issued cars, police escorts etc. They would not suffer personally if hit by an unlicensed driver.

FACT: Politicians don't care one way or the other whether you live in a safe community


-Why should they? They don’t live in your community, never have, and never will. They don’t want to live next to you, poor shmuck. Your daily life is inconsequential to them as you don’t contribute to their PAC in amounts sufficient to warrant their interest.

FACT: Politicians don't care about the law
-Why should they? They can get away with most things short of murder…they do not seem to have a problem with graft, corruption, bribes, embezzlement, influence peddling, theft etc. etc. etc.

FACT: Politicians beat up on illegal immigrants because, they don’t vote, don’t contribute to their campaigns and a stroke of a pen on a new law makes them look like they “did something” without actually doing anything. It’s win, win, win across the board.

Don’t be fooled, politicians care about one thing and one thing only: getting re-elected. And if this means that thousands of people in their state, on their streets drive without a license, because they have to go to these jobs that you won't do...and crash into you, they won't have insurance, you won't get compensated...well so be it! I still haven't been able to wrap my head around what's the danger posed by people driving with a driver’s license...quite the contrary, I always thought, from my rookie days in the academy up until now, that the purpose of the license was for us to be able to identify drivers, collect the issuance fee for the state (The true reason for early licenses) and, to ensure safety as passing a test became a requirement, and most applicable to me, make sure we had the driver’s names spelled right on tickets...Little did I know, nor was it explained to me in 22 weeks in the academy, that depending on your immigration status a driver’s license could become dangerous…

I still don’t see WHY?. Then there was September 11, 2001, where terrorists hijacked planes to commit the unthinkable and politicians hijacked a tragedy to justify all the excesses imaginable. So the terrorist card was played. Driver’s licenses could be used by terrorists illegally in the country to board airplanes… granted , it COULD have happened, but in fact, that DID NOT happen…Well, there again, in order to board an airplane WITHIN the United States, all you need is a valid passport from your own country, no visa needed, unless you’re coming from OUTSIDE the U.S. Your embassy will issue you a passport regardless of your U.S. immigration status. Why would they care about the U.S. immigration status of their citizens? Of course, the fact that the 9/11 terrorists had valid student visas and were in the U.S. legally was soon lost on everybody as the anti-immigrant rhetoric started to heat up. Those guys had plenty of Saudi money to pay for flying school lessons and padded bank accounts that showed they could support themselves for the duration of their stay in the U.S. And now, with fake documents becoming increasingly sophisticated, with bribery of DMV employees becoming more common, the well-funded terrorists have no trouble getting license. Heck, in order to completely bypass the bogus issue of illegal immigration and IDs terrorist organizations are actively recruiting natives of their target countries, including U.S. citizens.
Don’t get me wrong, I know firsthand and for a fact that DHS has done an excellent job at busting terrorist cells, networks, funding sources here in the U.S. and abroad. Still, I haven’t seen them haul terrorists from the line at a meatpacking plant, digging holes on a construction site or washing dishes at the local Ruby Tuesday. All jobs, I’m sure, you’re preparing your kids to take in the event those evil lawbreakers are “sent home”.

People will probably come down on me and say, “The law is the law, what part of illegal don’t you understand, they have to go home etc. etc.”. Well, let’s apply the law to those perfect citizens we claim to be. I’ll ticket you every time you won’t signal for a turn, follow too close, drive even one mile per hour above the speed limit, I’ll ticket you anytime at a red light or stop sign your front wheels even touch the white line, I’ll make your life a real treat sticking to the law, after all, the law is the law…no more prosecutorial discretion from me, no sir, no ma’am, I’ll treat you like…an illegal alien maybe?

Politicians conveniently omit to mention that being in the country illegally is a civil offence, not punishable by jail, much akin to a speeding or parking ticket… So what about the proportionality of punishment? I was taught that this was the guiding principle of our administration of justice system.

Why does a drug pusher get a couple of months in jail for selling weed while a responsible person such as Mr. Chacon Diaz, married to a U.S. citizen, who recently saved a child from abduction in Albuquerque, NM would have to spend 10 years away (under current law) from his wife and family because he remained in the U.S. illegally for more than a year?

How about we apply the same standard to similar offenses in the penal code? Let’s try this on for size: Let’s see, your kid gets popped for petit larceny, for swiping a baseball cap or a CD at the mall. So instead of some community service and probation, let’s exile your kid from you for say oh…10 years… Or let’s see, you speed 20 miles over the limit and you get pulled over. Ok, no ticket, you’re going down, you get booked, processed, incarcerated for a month or two, have to bond out and wear a monitoring bracelet until your court date. Once convicted, no fine, oh no sir! Because, the law is the law, right? What F*()&*(&!G part of ILLEGAL did you not understand when you got behind the wheel and pressed your lead foot on that pedal? Let’s see, we confiscate your car, we exile you, ten years, no soup for you! No more drivers’ license for 10 years, for a simple, misdemeanor civil offense… It’s drastic isn’t it? So, I’m excited now, what are we going to do to the burglar? ; To the cocaine dealer? Do we get to hang them? Decapitate them? Roast them over a bonfire after public lapidating? Wait a minute! That sounds like Afghanistan under the Taliban…are we wanting to create here the same conditions we are wasting the lives of our brave young soldiers fighting there in that very country? What have we turned into? What is our society becoming? Do we really want to be ruled by the spiritual descendants of the people who cheered under a tree while looking at a lynched body as their political base is a winning strategy for the long run and for the country? How soon will we have people out there advocating that illegal immigrants be lynched upon discovery since they “ cost taxpayer money”,” steal people's jobs”, drive with or without driver’s licenses !?” “Get drunk “and speak Spanish?
Maybe the Geo Corporation of America can come up with an artificial tree with limbs gua-ran-teed not to break under the average Mexican's weight. Maybe they can come up with a special colorful non-staining rope....that they can sell to the government for the modest price of a million bucks a piece...
If we continue sliding down this slippery slope, we will end up with another civil rights movement we really don’t need whose effects will adversely affect generations to come. Let’s not revisit the past on this.

Since the state I work in stopped issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, I know of no more than a handful that have stopped driving altogether. What I have seen , are more and more sophisticated attempts to conceal their identities, more lies, more fraud, corruption at DMV offices, in short, it’s bread more crime. No politician will come out and say they were wrong though…when have you seen that happen? I have seen countless people pulled over who thought they would be deported because they didn’t have an OL and acted nervous, even fled on foot. I have seen people get into a car accident and run away like hell leaving a trail of blood behind and unattended victims. What I have not seen, is a single politician helping at any of these scenes. They seem to be content with trying to get rid of police officers and firefighters to “save money”… Yeah, what a waste having the guys in blue willing to take a bullet for you or willing to run into a burning building to save a stranger…can’t think of a worse way to spend public funds…

A perfect example of a non-issue is the attendance of illegal immigrant at colleges while paying FULL TUITION there. What a great idea, have those highly trained ICE agents running around college campuses looking for illegals…Why? Because they want to get an education and pay for it? Get a good job maybe? Give me a break!
So at that point, the unemployment argument usually surfaces.

How about the 9% unemployment rate we are now facing? There are plenty of unemployed people. You are darn right about that. One of the many facets of the unemployment issue is the mis-match between the unemployed and the available jobs as well as the issue of pay.

An unemployed web developer is not going to go clean toilets or pick tomatoes. No one can blame them for that, nevertheless, toilets still need to be cleaned, lawns mowed etc. etc.

If you were born in this country and feel that you are in competition for jobs held by illiterate, uneducated, non-English speaking people, well at some point you made the WRONG choices in your life don't you think? Time for some introspection and taking some personal responsibility for your miserable life instead of blaming “others” don’t you think?

If some illegals are going to college and you as a US born individual are not, then again, maybe you screwed up along the way, made wrong choices or just were plain LAZY.

I love this Carlos Mencia skit on this topic:
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?title=english---the-mencia-way&videoId=23437

So funny and so full of truth at the same time.

Stop crying that illegals are taking your job and get off your butt and go learn something.

Many employers, some of whom are friends and family members will tell you, there are virtually no native born workers (even 1st generation children of immigrants) who will take physically demanding, low skill jobs and stay with them. Employers will tout the work ethic of their immigrant employees, the fact that they work days, nights, holidays, weekends reliably and without much complaint. Kind of like what your grandparents did… No matter the wage. I have seen illegal workers laying brick for $1000.00 a week. That work is backbreaking, dirty, dangerous and exposed to the sun, the rain, the wind and the cold. Well, that’s not a bad wage, heck that’s more than what I make as a local law enforcement officer! Still, why do you see Salvadorans, Mexicans, Guatemalans etc. doing this and no U.S. born worker? The wage is good, the work plentiful, the skill easily acquired... Is it because employers like to hear Spanish spoken on their job sites? Is it because Mexicans beat up native workers on the way to work to get their jobs? Is it because $1000.00 a week is not a living wage for an uneducated person? No, of course not! It’s because in order to ensure that native workers will reliably show up for work to do that, you’d have to pay twice as much. The only problem is that we are capitalists. That damn rule of supply and demand…We are not willing – nor able – to pay twice as much for our houses or commercial buildings, therefore, we have to be happy with employing illegals who are glad to come to work day in and day out to do the job without whining and complaining for $1000.00/week. It’s because we don’t want to get our hands dirty and come home with a backache to the point that we will work for less at another “white collar” type of job. Nevertheless, until we can come up with smart bricks that will lay themselves, someone is going to have to do it.

We’ve turned into a bunch of overprotected, demanding, selfish crybabies…that is partly why illegals have stepped in to do a man’s job out there… shame on us!

Many unemployed highly qualified people in their fields tragically can't find jobs matching the kind of income they expect for the skills they have and the skills needed for the particular business. That's how civil engineers with 25 years of experience are unemployed while a recent graduate of a civil engineering program will be inundated with offers. Companies would rather reduce their overhead to maximize profits by paying lower salaries. I heard they call that capitalism and someone mentioned the principle of offer and demand....Top Republican (anti-immigrant) sacred cows. What does have to do with illegal immigration?

Let’s move on to the “illegals don’t pay taxes”.

How are illegals not paying taxes? About 85% of them earn a paycheck, from a business that employs them. I yet have to see a paycheck without state and federal income tax deductions. Boy, how do I sign up for that program? When an illegal buys something in a store, I have never seen that: "undocumented sales tax exempt" special checkout line. When illegals rent an apartment, part of their rent goes to local taxes doesn't it? Just like for anyone else. If they buy a house, again, I have never seen that particular exemptions for illegals to pay their property tax. The IRS will even issue illegals an "Individual Taxpayer Identification Number", ITINs, for them to file their taxes with; which many do as they too, like to receive their tax refund check. I guess the only ones escaping income tax, are the ones who are paid in cash, but in that case I ask you, who is the criminal? The one who accepts compensation for their work? Or the one who circumvents the law by paying them under the table?

You'll say, but they consume more services than they pay for etc. etc. I agree, especially because of healthcare costs for their U.S. born children. Well, think a little bit. Why do they use emergency rooms as their primary healthcare provider? Could it be because government regulations are such that affordable health insurance is not available for their employers to provide? So in fact, the employer who attracted them to this country in the first place, is being subsidized by our tax dollars by pushing their employees to use emergency rooms as their primary physician. Nice!

Furthermore, the party that pushes anti-immigration ideals is also the party of trillion dollar corporation bailouts with YOUR tax dollars, so we can support the country club lifestyles of their executives. This worries me a lot more than the cost of educating illegals who pay out of state tuition at the local community college. Anyways, don’t worry about those politicians whose every word you hang on, once out of office, they’ll be sitting on the board of a large corporation near you. While you (and me) poor saps that we are, will still be struggling to pay our bills, pay our mortgages and taxes, make ends meet and see our family cut back while the politicians and their corporate cronies are doing just fine.

I'd rather illegals be in school, paying out of state tuition, than end up in immigration detention which costs the US taxpayer $20,000.00 plus a year per detainee, without figuring the cost of law enforcement, prosecution and trial at the federal level. Did you know that a majority of immigration detainees are held in private prisons? Paid for with YOUR tax dollars? Passing immigration reform is not good business for those businessmen in government...so that's why they don't want to hear about it. Let's have more of those $10.00 an hour badly trained, understaffed private prison guard jobs with crappy benefits in your community. They sure dangle that job carrot around to the public and local officials. Those jobs contribute marginally to the local economy. The only fat contributions are those from the corporations to the local politicians campaign's so that they get those low-bid prisons built (by illegals, to cut cost ironically) , so we can transfer more of our tax dollars from the "in the red “ public treasury to the "in the black" private corrections' business' coffers.

Did you know that the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law was WRITTEN and LOBBIED for by none other than the Geo Corporation of America, a leading provider of private immigration detention and monitoring in the US? Isn't that an interesting business model? One that hijacks the democratic process makes a mockery of justice and allows former government officials and politicians to make bank by playing on peoples fear, ignorance and hatred. Not exactly what our founding fathers envisioned.

Do you really think that chasing illegals on college campuses is a good use of our tax dollars versus looking for criminal aliens? As I said earlier, I am a local law enforcement officer, and I have seen many times the help of ICE being requested to issue a detainer on a suspect in custody only to be told that they had no manpower to come down to the jail and take care of it or that the suspect wasn't important enough to warrant that, well, if charges can’t be lodged against the suspect, they have to let them go within 72 hours pursuant to the Constitution we are sworn to uphold. Recently in an adjoining jurisdiction, a murder suspect was released from jail because charges against him did no stick. ICE was begged to send someone to come and re-instate the deportation order and issue a detainer, to no avail...
The case was weak, as no witnesses to his crime would come forward, mainly due to their fear of police and being deported, compounded by the lack of physical evidence, he was released. The suspect had been deported in 2007 and re-entered the U.S. subsequently. Boy would I have wished that instead of messing with college students or unlicensed drivers that end up in lockup, they would have come for this guy!

I really don't see what would be wrong with the following:

• Allow people who pay a fine for entering illegally, just like you pay a fine
for similarly classified crimes, and
• Learn English, and
• Have a clean criminal record, and
• Have a JOB and,
• Have strong ties to the U.S. such as legal relatives.
• Coupled with a realistic, workable LEGAL immigration system allowing for the
educated,talented AND the needed unskilled to come to the U.S.

-To become legal residents and have the opportunity to apply for citizenship after 5 years-

I also firmly believe that the burden of punishment should be shifted from the guy trying to make a living to feed his family and staying out of trouble to the employer who is employing illegal aliens. Instead of weak civil fines, employers should be subject to criminal charges and penitentiary time. The employment of illegals would come to a screeching halt. But you see, businesses contribute to political campaigns and their owners vote. Illegals contribute no money to campaigns and can't vote, therefore, they are the ideal patsy.
I am not advocating letting ALL illegals stay if they meet those conditions. I would stand for a standard that would mandate that anyone illegally in the country convicted of a misdemeanor or felony not classified as a strictly traffic violation misdemeanor (to the exclusion of DUI/DWI) would be ineligible for admission as a legal immigrant and shall be removed from the country when apprehended. Someone who has paid taxes for years, has built strong ties to the U.S., has stayed out of trouble, has learned English and has a job should be afforded the opportunity to make their case for legalization after payment of a fine. There was such a provision in the law, called “Section 245(i)” that allowed illegals who could meet those requirement (save the English and having a job addition) to pay a $1000.00 fine on top of immigration processing fees and obtain their papers provided they had an employer that sponsored them through the stringent and cumbersome U.S. Department of Labor Alien Labor Certification process or had a relative that sponsored them in one of the categories set forth in current law. This law was allowed to expire in April of 2001. I would be for doubling, even tripling the fine and using that to train unemployed current workers, build schools, roads, invest in R&D, and support our export industry, lower taxes or whatever else that would benefit the country.

Heck, with millions of individuals already in the U.S. who could potentially qualify for that and have to pay that fine that would be a nice chunk of change.
Jobs are mostly what attract illegals, with family ties in the U.S in second place. Not much else. Illegal entries at the border have diminished by close to 50% since the economy has been swirling at the bottom of the world toilet. Any border patrol agent will tell, you that it's not a coincidence.

You will say, oh, they just need to come here legally. Well the sad reality is that for most, there is no legal avenue available to them to come legally. There is this great little cartoon touching on that subject: http://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg

The solutions to illegal immigration will always be complex, multifaceted and a partial one. As long as we have strong economy, an open society and remain the beacon of the free world, people will want to come to this country. We should see this as strength, not a weakness.

Some solutions to the problem won’t be approached by sleazy, demagogic, gutless, politicians. Those solutions would include a more realistic immigration system. The byzantine antiquated 1965 system we have is broken and does not meet the needs of our economy and society. The current system only allows for 5000 unskilled workers to immigrate to this country per year, through a stringent, cumbersome asinine process far removed from reality or its purported goal of protected U.S. workers. This is ridiculously small for a nation of 300 million plus stretching over 3.5 plus million square miles. Fixing the immigration system is only ONE PART of this, the other parts are to punish employers who do not perform due diligence in employing a legal workforce with criminal, not civil sanctions once a realistic, workable legal avenue to bring in legal workers has been put in place. The other part is to actively look for prosecute and deport criminal aliens efficiently. Placing more border patrol agents on the line is also crucial to abating the problem. There will never be zero illegal immigration into the U.S. lest we turn the greatest country in the world into a shithole like North Korea.

What about those radicalized candidates for the presidency?

Your local pizza joint owner running a government? because after all, government is just a business right? Everything is fine as long as we can balance the books, make a profit and maintain the credit rating. See, whether you run a pizza joint, or just a plain "joint", the same principles apply right? You see where I'm getting at with this?

We don't need more businessmen in governemt, having them there is only good for THEIR business, never the people's business. The current economic crisis has been caused, let's not forget, by irresponsible business practices at the government level, by de-regulating to the extreme, by crazy financial ponzi schemes, because, people in government with a business background thought they could make an endless profit with wind.

The current economic crisis, let's not forget, wasn't caused by people on medicare, it wasn't caused by illegal immigrants, those are colorful rattling dolls they agitate in front of you like you would do to a baby to make them stop crying. The current economic crisis was caused by Harvard educated businessmen in smart suits as they tried their hand at governing.

Will we find it in ourselves to select courageous politicians who will do the right thing regardless of the latest opinion polls?

We need honorable, smart, courageous, capable STATESMEN. But how can we elect such people into office if we are not being ourselves smart, courageous, capable citizens? There's no shortage of business people in government, and they have taken us down the path we are on now. What we don't have is STATESMEN in government. Our current president, with all due respect, is a sorry excuse for a statesman. The Republican field for the presidency with people like Brachman and Cain who are ridiculously unqualifed to run a country isn’t much better. ? Your local pizza joint owner running the free world? Come on! Those two are just a repeat of the same greedy idiots we've had in the past.

Where are the likes of Colin Powell's, Ricardo Sanchez', John McCains of the world? Why can't they be president? Because these businessmen have either disgusted them out of running for office or plain destroyed them to make sure they wouldn't get there, because, even though they were good for the country's business, they would have been bad for THEIR businesses.

Unfortunately, the Republican National Committee has shamelessly sold their soul to their corporate country club golf playing friends. And the Democratic National Committee is paralyzed in destructive internecine disputes over who they should pander to most.

Stop being blinded by sleazy politician rhetoric, hatred and ignorance. Open your EYES and THINK.

We need leaders who will do the right thing even if it means making a tough political choice, people who understand that running a country is not like running a corporation, profit is not the endgame. Liberty, justice and prosperity are the goal here.

Immigrants who brave great perils to come to the U.S. to clean your toilets, wipe your little prodigy’s butt, mow your lawn, build and clean your house, wash your car, wash your dishes, pick your food, cook your food, move your furniture, paint your house, and yes, sometimes rescue your little girl from the clutches of a rapist...Immigrants who overcome great obstacles to feed their families, have guts and a desire to better themselves are what we need in this country, way more than sleazy politicians.

When was the last time you arrested a criminal illegal alien? I can say that I did that just a few hours ago…

Just a few thoughts from a cop on the streets.