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  1. #1
    Senior Member Brian503a's Avatar
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    No exceptions: Immigrants must adhere to the law

    http://www.northjersey.com

    No exceptions: Immigrants must adhere to the law
    Wednesday, May 3, 2006

    By LAWRENCE AARON



    THE RIVERS of marchers flowing across your TV screens in recent weeks help you better appreciate the magnitude of the undocumented immigrant problem. The scene from Monday's "A Day Without an Immigrant" was the same in many cities, including Trenton, Newark and Camden. Some Paterson businesses closed, too.

    Undocumented immigrants and their supporters stayed away from work Monday, demanding Congress not make it a felony for them to stay illegally.

    I believe in immigration. I understand and appreciate the classic script that Americans never tire of hearing. The plot is familiar. Immigrant arrives penniless speaking no English, struggles against all odds and becomes the home-owning patriarch of a family of lawyers, doctors, Wall Street wizards and English scholars.

    Certainly the 12 million illegal immigrants in our midst may eventually get to that point. Indeed, some already have. Bravo.

    But that's not what's happening in this latest act of "We Are a Nation of Immigrants."

    What's happening in this instance is altogether different. These people are here illegally, without papers. Their numbers are huge. This is chaos.

    I believe in immigration when it is a rational, orderly process that allows the government to keep track of who's here, not when it's a helter-skelter system allowing anybody who manages to get to America from south of the border to stay.

    It is not unreasonable for citizens of any country to expect their government to regulate who's allowed to come and stay.

    It is unreasonable for people who are not citizens to dictate the conditions of their residency, or for the president of their country to take umbrage at our desire to control the flow.

    They do not have the right to stay just because they managed to arrive in one piece. They took a chance getting here. Applause for immigrant spunk. That is the American story, but there's plenty more dues to pay.

    The rewards are freedom from daily harassment, free public school education, and freedom to send $30 billion out of the country. Citizenship as a reward for just crossing the border is not a fair trade.

    We need a rational approach to address the problem of millions of illegals. They are not criminals. Most are unwitting pawns being used to stunt the growing cost of labor. Working outside the Social Security system, millions of undocumented workers neither make contributions nor receive benefits.

    At a high-volume fresh food store on Main Street in Hackensack Monday, many Latinos were at work restocking produce and ringing up sales. A vegetable manager said comparatively few of his immigrant workers stayed away, causing little impact on business.

    Two weeks ago at a New Jersey rally, which supported lenient treatment of undocumented workers, the first Hispanic attorney general, Zulima Farber, pledged that her office would protect immigrants.

    "I intend to be aggressive in defending the rights of immigrants and making certain they are not discriminated against, exploited or criminally victimized," she said. Monday she was at her desk.

    An office spokesman, David Wald, said 200 people sent faxes and e-mails to Farber expressing disapproval of her position.

    They shared my perception that Farber, the state's chief law enforcement officer, gave a blanket endorsement of illegals. Wald said her position has been misunderstood: Her prepared statement said that everyone has a right to the attorney general's protection. As written, it is a statement ambiguous enough to mean anything including endorsing illegal immigration. It is unclear where she stands.

    A Cuban immigrant, had Farber not become an educated citizen, she would not be our attorney general today.

    The Department of Homeland Security reported 92 percent of the 1.2 million undocumented people apprehended entering the country in 2004 were from Mexico. The rest represented 181 other countries, but were predominantly from Latin America: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua. A few were from China, Jamaica and Pakistan.

    At one busy Texas border crossing, citations issued to illegals were routinely ignored. Almost none ever returned to face a judge. They disappeared into the night.

    Non-Mexicans crossing into the United states from south of the border numbered 155,000 at last count. One of them could have been Osama on a shopping trip.

    Whatever action Congress takes, a moratorium on new arrivals and strong border protection are mandatory components. Unmistakable parallels exist between Mexican marchers and civil rights demonstrators of the Sixties and Seventies. The major difference, however, is that African-Americans were demanding rights granted to them as citizens. The Mexicans are foreigners without papers, and can rely only on the kindness of strangers.

    Lawrence Aaron is a Record columnist. Contact him at aaron@northjersey.com. Send comments about this column to oped@northjersey.com.
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    I like this guy.
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

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