KVNUFTP

I would like to take this opportunity to rebut some of the statements made by Tom and Ryan about the bills sponsored by Rep. Donnelson to crack down on illegal immigration. The dire consequences and sure failure they predicted on tonight’s show and on this blog are, in my view, unfounded. I’ll also touch on some of their general immigration statements. So here we go.

Local enforcement of immigration law

One bill would force the Department of Public Safety to enter into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That pact would allow state law enforcement officers to volunteer to perform certain functions of an immigration agent after completing required training. This program is called the 287(g) program, and is used in many parts of the US. Tom claims this bill will make all illegal immigrants afraid to talk to police, leading to a crime wave directed at illegals. However, Center for Immigration Studies senior policy analyst Jessica Vaughan says:

“the argument that the 287(g) program will lead to less cooperation with police from the immigrant community “is a complete myth and not supported by any kind of empirical or anecdotal evidence I have ever seen, and most ICE and law enforcement will tell you its complete nonsense. . . . Victims of crime simply aren’t going to be subject to removal orders — it’s not going to be a priority.” The argument “is promulgated by organizations that just don’t like immigration law enforcement,” Vaughan said. Most agencies seeking the 287(g) agreements emphasize it won’t be used to target victims, witnesses or informants but rather criminals.

Besides, do we have any evidence that illegal immigrants are cooperative with police now? If they aren’t, then this program won’t change anything. If they’re afraid to talk to police despite clear provisions exempting crime victims and witnesses from deportation, then that’s not our fault.

Another assertion of Tom’s was that this program will lead to massive racial profiling, or else require police to check everyone’s citizenship status. In fact, one of the main uses of this program is to check the residency status of people arrested on other crimes. Without the 287(g) program, criminal aliens who complete their sentences are simply released back into the community. With this program, such people can be deported. Under the 287(g) program, 30,000 criminals have been identified as potentially deportable since the beginning of fiscal 2006, according to ICE. Even John McCain, a big amnesty supporter, now admits that there are two million criminal aliens in this country, and he says they should be deported immediately. This program would help achieve that end.

In response to arguments that this program would tie up and distract law enforcement, Colorado State Patrol Master Trooper Ron Watkins says:

“The officers make only probable cause stops, such as for speeding or driving while intoxicated. Before they had 287(g) authority, if an officer stopped a driver and found a car of suspected illegal immigrants he would sometimes have to wait hours for ICE to arrive and take over, Watkins said in an interview. That would prevent the officer from doing other work, and sometimes the officer would be called away and the illegal immigrants would be free to go, he said. Now the officers can put illegal immigrants in custody and begin the deportation process.

How often does this type of thing happen down in southeast Utah, a well-known immigrant-smuggling area?

Deportation and a border fence

Tom raises the popular canard of illegal immigrant activists that “we can’t deport 12 million people,” even raising the specter of Hitler’s storm troopers. This is part of the false dichotomy of deportation-or-amnesty. Nobody is proposing the deportation of 12 million people. There is a third way, that has proved successful: attrition. Remove some of the incentives for living here illegally, and people will leave on their own. It’s working in Arizona, where a new employer-sanctions law is now in effect:

The number returning to Mexico is difficult to calculate, but there is no question that many families are leaving, according to Mexican government officials, local community leaders and immigrants themselves.

…

In what are considered bellwethers of permanent moves back to Mexico, the Mexican consulate in Phoenix has seen a dramatic increase in applications for Mexican birth certificates, passports and other documents that immigrants living in Arizona will need to return home.

Utah seems to be taking the opposite approach. Instead of removing incentives, we keep them in place, including driving privilege cards, in-state tuition, and a “sanctuary” policy in Salt Lake City. Pretty soon those immigrants leaving Arizona will head north instead of south. Two other bills by Rep. Donnelson look to remove the first two of these incentives.

In regards to the fence, Tom lays the hyperbole on thick:

No matter how large or formidable a wall is erected, unless there is a reasonable legal way for people to come to the United States, people will get around the wall.

Make it 500 feet tall.

Put a pit bull every 15 feet.

Use barbed wire.

Put 1,000,000 troops on the border.

And I gauran-damn-tee that as long as our policies are unreasonable, the stream of illegal aliens will keep coming. This is the greatest nation in the history of mankind and people see it’s beacon. They do literally anything to get here.

While nothing will stop 100% of illegal immigrants, you cannot deny that converting our southern border from what is in many places a wide open thoroughfare to a fenced, fortified obstacle will deeply reduce the number of people coming across illegally. And Ryan’s comparison of a border fence to the Berlin Wall is baseless. In fact, the two fences had/have completely opposite purposes. While preventing people from leaving a country is a sure sign of a failing dictatorship, nobody can argue that it is not one of the primary functions of government to control its borders and regulate who comes in, especially in this era of foreign terrorists and portable WMDs.

McCain-Kennedy amnesty

Finally, I’d like to address Tom’s assertion that last year’s amnesty bill was a missed opportunity at fixing our immigration system. It was not. What better way to attract illegal immigrants than amnesty? Give it to 12 million people without doing anything to control the border, and you’ll have millions more trying to get here in time for the next amnesty (or even this one). Plus, this bill would have allowed for little time to do background checks on amnesty recipients, ensuring that we would award citizenship to many of the aforementioned 2 million criminal aliens, including gang members. It also would have required only flimsy proof of residence, such as sworn affidavits or day labor center records, to qualify.

Symptomatic of the flaws of this bill was the way supporters attempted to ram it through Congress with little public attention. It was negotiated in secret, and debate on the bill was severely limited. Only due to internet- and radio-based information campaigns, and a flood of phone calls, was this defeated. On no other issue are lawmakers so out of touch with voters.

In short, I support all of Rep. Donnelson’s immigration bills, and think the Legislature should approve them during this session.

Craig