Thread: Our View: Immigration not the issue in bus crash

Our View: Immigration not the issue in bus crash

— It was an unfortunate contribution to an already awful tragedy when it was revealed that the driver of a vehicle that slammed into a school bus, resulting in the deaths of four children, is an apparent illegal alien.
Added to the grief was anger, fanning an already divisive immigration debate.
Daily since the Feb. 19 accident that happened near the small hamlet of Cottonwood, more information about the 24-year-old woman is learned. An illegal immigrant identified Monday as a Guatemalan, she goes by a false name, and she does not have a valid driver�s license. On Tuesday, it was learned she�d been pulled over on the same highway a month before the accident and her boyfriend, who was driving, was ticketed for driving without a license.
The revelations add more issues to the story, an unwelcome intrusion into the life of a community.
In a town the size of Cottonwood, where everyone knows everyone, it had to be unsettling to grieve for the children and their families while the attention of a nation focused upon them. In the aftermath, residents there were forced to grapple with being asked questions by the media while trying helplessly to make sense of a senseless tragedy. To some, it may have felt as if the children � Reed Stevens, 12, Emilee Olson, 9, and brothers Jesse, and Hunter Javens, ages 13 and 9 respectively � had been transformed into statistics instead of promising young people denied their futures.
Sadly, that is the way it does appear, at times, in a world where news events happen so quickly that most of us have so little time to reflect on them in the personal, human way we all would like to.
As for the woman in the center of the storm, she is now a reference point for those who argue she represents a more compelling argument for the state to seek a more aggressive solution to the illegal immigration problem. The bus incident does serve to remind us that undocumented aliens pose a variety of risks. How many drive without licenses? How do we measure the impact on communities as illegals resort, essentially, to living underground � avoiding contact with authorities, mistrusting them and many of their neighbors to hide their illegal status?
Most do their best to fit in and become valued members of the towns they live in. But as some among them avoid the responsibilities of citizenship (continually aware that they are not, after all, citizens), how do they increase the chance that an incident of the type that occurred near Cottonwood last week, can occur?
These are hard issues to quantify.
Perhaps we should refrain from even attempting to tie the bus-van accident to immigration issues at all. There are enough bad drivers in this state for us to know that they come in all shapes, sizes, nationalities, legal status and levels of sobriety. Bad driving is no respecter of persons, on either the giving or receiving end � as we were reminded again last week.

Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.

http://www.mankatofreepress.com/editori ... printstory

How can illegal immigration NOT be the issue? This illegal immigrant was HERE and caused this accident. Period.

The LEFT Free Press what do you expect.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS THE ISSUE! IF THAT ILLEGAL WAS NOT HERE, THOSE CHILDREN WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!

How pathetic...put the damn blame where it belongs...on someone who has no respect for our laws at all any of them from the moment she came into this country as with all the other illegals who breached our borders unlawfully.

They are worried about the lawsuit. That's why they are taking this approach. The parents should sue the President of Mexico and the so-called president of America (he doesn't deserve a capital "P"), not the school system.

Originally Posted by WorriedAmerican

They are worried about the lawsuit. That's why they are taking this approach. The parents should sue the President of Mexico and the so-called president of America (he doesn't deserve a capital "P"), not the school system.

Can't she is Guatemalan...

This horrible accident happened because of an illegal immigrant. This sensless tragedy would have NEVER OCCURED if this illegal immigrant WAS NOT IN OUR COUNTRY IN THE 1ST PLACE!

The view of the Mankato Free Press sucks!

She had no right to be in this country let alone behind the wheel of an automobile. Therefore, how can her illegal status not be the issue?

We should all write our own letter in response and send it back to to the editors and authors of pro-illegal stances!

Take time to write a letter tonight and start the bomb-barding campaign for the complete day tomorrow. Let's show them what it's all about!