The Dallas suburb of Irving has been participating in a federal program under which local police departments who arrest suspects for other alleged violations, but who cannot prove that they are in the country legally, call US immigration authorities. If the suspects really are illegals, then they get deported. The program has been pretty controversial locally, because it's been so successful.
Now the feds are telling Irving to slow down. Why? It can't handle all the illegals that Irving police are catching. Note that Irving cops aren't carrying out raids or anything else; the aliens put through this program are suspects they pick up in the regular course of quotidian police work. The feds only want to hear from local cops regarding Class B violators, not Class C.:
Irving officials estimate that 60 percent of the more than 1,700 suspected illegal immigrants they have turned over to ICE for deportation since last year faced only Class C misdemeanor charges. Such charges include speeding, assault, public intoxication and hot checks. The penalty for Class C misdemeanors is a fine of no more than $500.Class B misdemeanors include disorderly conduct with a firearm, prostitution and driving while intoxicated. Penalties include a fine of up to $2,000 and up to 180 days in jail.
So, float a check, get into a barfight, etc., no problem, Mr. Illegal Alien. Because the US Government does not intend to enforce the law. This really chaps me bad. We are not even talking here about illegal immigrants who work hard and mind their own business. We are talking about people who, however minor the infraction, have run afoul of the law (and believe me, if you've ever been involved in an automobile accident with an illegal alien who lacked car insurance, you know that there's really nothing all that minor about traffic infractions with these people, at least from your end). We are not talking about deporting 11 million people; we are talking about deporting people who cannot obey the law once they're here (illegally).
I do feel somewhat sorry for ICE. If they don't have the resources to handle a problem this massive, that's understandable. But Congress and the Bush administration ought to be giving them the resources. Full stop. Period. The end.
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A misdemeanor assault isn't a slug or fistfight, it is a "violation of ones personal space" or some other inappropriate touching. Two people grab for the same dress at a store and you tug to get it from their hands. You touch their hand. That's a misdemeanor assault.
Yes, these are crimes. So are giving your 20 year old kid a sip of beer, driving 1 mile over the speed limit, and jaywalking. Do you really want ICE wasting their energy to process jaywalkers and people going 1 mile over the speedlimit and having them deported?
Two people grab for the same dress at a store and you tug to get it from their hands. You touch their hand. That's a misdemeanor assault.
It is. But how many times are the police called for something like this? Never. Ditto driving 1 mile over the limit (they usually give you 5 miles grace at least) or jaywalking. Unless someone gets hurt in the process. These are "lesser offenses" which conceal something a bit more than grabbing something from someone at the sale table.
Daniel,
Actually class C assault is less serious than I thought but more serious than you are saying. The definition is:
Assault (by threat or offensive contact)
To me this would all depend on the circumstances. In a parking lot after dark, I would take it very seriously if someone threatened to beat me up or actually shoved me against a wall because he thought I took his parking space.
As for hot checks, yes, unless they agree to pay up right away, I have no sympathy.
In a way, this is somewhat reassuring to me -- even if, I have to admit, I don't have too much of a quarrel with you on the substance, Rod.
My own fear with the ICE program of cooperating with local police has always been that it will turn into mass, indiscriminate raids that violate the Fourth Amendment (and lots of other constitutional guarantees for citizens and non-citizens alike). It certainly doesn't sound like the resources or commitment are there from the Bush Administration to do so -- even if the talk radio callers wouldn't mind paramilitary tactics one bit.
Good. Grab them all.
I'm tired of big business attempting to have a permanent non-voting repressed underclass in this country, and if the only way to stop that is to start deporting people until we realize how impossible that is, let's go ahead and start it right now. It's the whole 'enforce every law to the letter of the law' method of making people realize how stupid the laws are.
By the time we get a Democratic president in office, maybe we'll start realizing the problem isn't people here illegally, the problem is a system deliberately set up so that a large portion of lower-class workers in this country have no political power and cannot make any waves without the risk of being deported, and that is why they're working so cheap and 'taking our jobs'.
You put them on the books, you make it so they can complain to OSHA, you make it so they can strike and form unions without being turned in, and, presto, all problems are magically gone and they're demanding the same wages as everyone else.
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