05
Jun

Selective enforcement is anti-American

Published on June 5th, 2008

By Rick Oltman
Marin Independent Journal
June 4, 2008

THE RECENT ARRESTS of illegal aliens in San Rafael has produced the familiar chorus of hyperbolic denunciations from the usual suspects, all of them benefiting one way or another from illegal aliens living in our community.

There are between 20 million to 30 million illegal immigrants in our country, and it is now obvious that the federal government doesn’t want to stop the influx of most illegal immigrants. The recent arrests are targeted at "absconders," the approximately 600,000 who have been ordered deported but never showed up for the trip back to their nation of origin. They are the worst of the worst.

But these arrests are in reality only a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done. When the employment magnet is removed by requiring every employer to run every employee through an efficient electronic employment verification process, only then will you know that the federal government is serious about immigration enforcement, which currently it is not.

Absent from any discussion about immigration enforcement is the impact on U.S.-citizen children who will grow up in a California and America that has been radically altered by illegal immigration. The population today is 38 million for the Golden State and 304 million for the country. In 40 years, the country will have half a billion people and California will be bulging with 60 million before then without adding another drop of water. Virtually 100 percent of the population growth in California is from legal and illegal immigration.

Crime, health care, education and the environment will continue to be impacted by future waves of illegal aliens. Some of our communities will become squalid megacities, teaming with every social ill one can imagine. And, to see what awaits the next generation, just look to those countries with overpopulation problems today, it is a window to our future.

For those who oppose this law enforcement, nothing is satisfactory to them to solve the problem of illegal immigration. No law passed by Congress, no initiative qualified and passed by the people, no level of enforcement is acceptable. When I say "nothing is satisfactory" what I mean is that nothing is what they want done about securing the borders and enforcing immigration laws.

Use of emotional phrases like "terrorize the children" are designed to mask the real intent of the objection to this much needed immigration law enforcement. That objection revolves around money.

Business opposes secure borders and immigration enforcement because they benefit from the cheap labor and the new consumers that immigrants become with their first paycheck. Social services and non-profits benefit because their taxpayer funded budgets and private fund-raising efforts are dependent on the size of the illegal immigrant population that they have been created to serve.

The current complaint about immigration enforcement is that those arrested have children who are upset, and no doubt they are. But, any parent who violates any law and is subject to arrest is the one responsible for the grief and fear their children feel, not those sworn to uphold the law.

If you examine the comments of the anti-enforcement crowd, they support selective enforcement of the law by finding some excuse that exempts the law breaker. In the immigration debate they feel that if the illegal immigrant has children, pays taxes, is working at some stoop labor job, whatever, that he should be exempt from law enforcement.

This double standard is antithetical to the American tradition of equal protection under the law and enforcement of the law without exception regardless of birth or station in life. Laws must be enforced equally and the constant cry for exceptions, supported by elected officials in the highest offices of the land, leads to a resentment and breakdown of respect for all laws.

Rick Oltman of Novato is media director of Californians for Population Stabilization.

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