Thread: Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Feds hold the key to crack down on ill

Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Feds hold the key to crack down on illegal immigration


REMEMBER WHEN STATE and local officials couldn't wait to get their 15 minutes of fame by cracking down on illegal immigration? Well, thank goodness, that trend might be coming to an end — in part because of the economic crisis.

According to a recent article in USA Today, some of these saber-rattlers have lost their appetite, moved on to other issues, or simply confronted the economic reality that local enforcement measures cost money — something that is suddenly in short supply. Others figured out that one consequence of tackling the immigration issue locally is that you foster divisions and wind up — in the words of one local official quoted in the article — "pitting neighbor against neighbor." Still others are concerned about negative publicity or the cost of fighting legal challenges — especially at a time when, as another local official put it, "we don't know whether illegal immigration is a financial plus or minus."

If such a trend is developing, it would be quite a departure from what occurred during the great immigration scare of the last few years. You'll recall how many state legislators, mayors and city council members, county supervisors and sheriffs — just about anyone who stood for re-election and wanted to distract voters from other issues — used the presence of illegal immigrants as a way to establish their toughness bona fides.

Meanwhile, the local crackdowns


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the politicians proposed must have been terribly confusing to the illegal immigrants, given that, in their view, these places invited them in by offering them jobs. Then they want them out? And, when some leave — either to neighboring states or back to their own countries — employers want them back? In Arizona and Colorado, where lawmakers tried to make their states inhospitable to illegal immigrants, they're now devising plans for their own labor agreements with Mexico.

Many of the efforts were so clumsy and imprecise that they seemed aimed at all foreigners in general. As such, they appeared to be motivated less by a desire to enforce the law than a desperation to turn back the clock and return communities to what they were before the latest immigrants arrived.

A prime example is any law or ordinance that declares English the official language of a city or state. That has nothing to do with securing the border or running off illegal immigrants.

It's about making English-speakers feel comfortable amid changing demographics. In Iowa, lawmakers declared English the state's official language and required that most government documents be printed solely in English. Democratic state Rep. Bruce Hunter now wants to repeal the law because he thinks it sends "the wrong message about the state of Iowa."

There was similar concern in the small town of Oak Point, Texas, about 35 miles north of Dallas. The town adopted an English-only resolution in 2007 — only to rescind the measure a year later amid worries about negative publicity.

In both Utah and Alabama, officials have tried to tone down or delay implementing laws that crack down on those who hire illegal immigrants.

At a time when states are hurting financially and desperate to keep businesses from relocating elsewhere, anything that might scare off companies risks being tossed overboard.

Something similar happened in Arizona, where voters recently passed a ballot initiative to soften one of the toughest employer-sanction laws in the country. Whereas employers previously could lose their business license for repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants, now that only happens if they "knowingly" do so.

And so, in what has to be seen as a positive development, more and more local officials seem eager to put the illegal immigration issue back where it belongs — in the hands of federal authorities.

That's the point. Just because you don't think that English-only laws should be mixed up with immigration reform doesn't mean you support an open border.

We should be tough on illegal immigration. We should speed up deportations, continue workplace raids, stiffen penalties for smugglers, crack down on employers, create a tamper-proof ID card for employees, and give the Border Patrol agents on the front lines the tools they need to do their jobs.

We should do all that and more — as long as we do it at the federal level.

Navarrette Jr. is a columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune. His e-mail address is ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion ... ck_check=1

Ruben Navarrette obviously has an agenda. I think he is wrong, the American people are increaingly angry that their hard earned money is going to support illegal slugs. The anger is only going to build as taxes go up and services for the American people go down. And the illegals getting all the "freebies" at the American people's expense could push the American people over the edge.

This is an ideal time for illegals to go home!

Hey, Ruben!! Fine then! Bank robbery and kidnapping are also Federal crimes, so if someone you love is kidnapped, we'll just tell the local, county and state cops to sit tight and let the feds handle it...when they get there. What a flaming idiot!

There is a perception in my town, with a high population of illegals, that these criminals get more benefits than hard working Americans. I'm included. Tea party coming up!

Commentary: Time for immigration reform is now

Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist and a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Read his column here.


Ruben Navarrette says President Obama shouldn't wait to start building the case for immmigration reform.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Obviously, President Obama has a lot on his plate: two wars, an ailing economy, the mortgage crisis and more. But that doesn't relieve him of the obligation to serve up his plan for immigration reform.

Sooner would be better than later. On that point, interestingly enough, you'll find agreement from both sides of the ideological divide. The problem is they don't agree on what "reform" means.

To enforcement-only restrictionists, the phrase "immigration reform" means securing the borders, continuing workplace raids, speeding up deportations of illegal immigrants and limiting the number of legal immigrants.

To immigrant advocates, it means a comprehensive approach that links enforcement, guest workers and earned legalization for some of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

While squeamish political strategists will tell you that it is never a good time to grab hold of such a thorny issue, Obama has some capital now. He should spend some of it on fixing the broken immigration system.

In doing so, he would avoid repeating a mistake by his predecessor. In one of his final interviews as president, George W. Bush said that he should have pursued immigration reform at the start of his second term instead of tackling the challenging issue of shoring up Social Security.

Besides, the political picture is only likely to get more complicated as the months pass. The more controversial the legislation, the less likely it is to get done in an election year. So if Obama doesn't put a plan on the table this year, it'll push the debate into 2011.

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By then, alliances will have shifted, and Obama might just find himself engaged in more skirmishes with his own party than with the opposition.

That could make it impossible for him to get anything through Congress until his second term, that is, if there is a second term. So if Obama intends to do something on immigration reform, he had better hurry.

The big mystery is what the president intends to do. No one seems to know, and he is not dropping any hints.

Obama campaigned for the Latino vote by portraying John McCain as a flip-flopper who went from co-authoring a comprehensive reform plan to parroting a secure-the-border-first approach and promising to be more consistent as president. And while Obama told three Latino organizations last summer that he intended to make immigration reform a top priority of his administration, early signs are causing worry among some immigration advocates.

First came his choice of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff. While serving as Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lieutenant in the House of Representatives, Emanuel was a major obstacle to an immigration deal. Emanuel called immigration the new "third rail" of American politics, and he thought it belonged on the back burner, if not completely off the stove.

Then, there was Obama's equally tone-deaf decision to name Janet Napolitano to head the Homeland Security Department.

As Arizona governor, Napolitano signed the toughest employer sanction law in the country, hyperbolically declared a "state of emergency" along the U.S.-Mexican border and joined the clownish Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in condemning the Homeland Security Department -- the same agency she now heads -- for not doing enough to enforce immigration laws.

Personally, I'm convinced that the answer to America's immigration woes is a middle-of-the-road approach that combines enforcement measures (continued workplace raids, speedier deportations, more spending on tools and technology for border patrol agents, etc.) with guest workers, an increase in legal immigration, a tamper-proof ID card for all U.S. employees, tougher sanctions for employers and a path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000.

That may be close to what Obama has in mind, and the best way for him to get a plan through Congress would be to make sure he keeps the language on guest workers (to get the votes of Republicans beholden to business) but also creates protections for these workers (to get the votes of those Democrats beholden to labor unions). Above all, he must act quickly.

In a recent interview with National Public Radio, Napolitano spelled out her department's priorities, which included "enforcement of our nation's immigration laws" and taking up the larger issue of immigration reform at "the right time."

Guess what, Mr. President. That time is now

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.
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All About George W. Bush • Barack Obama • Janet Napolitano

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02 ... migration/