Thread: Candidate says crime rate linked to immigration, drugs

http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/286991714106746

Candidate says crime rate linked to immigration, drugs
By LEAH BETH WARD
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC


Republican congressional hopeful Claude Oliver campaigned Friday on the immigration issue in Yakima, linking the city's property-crime problem with illegal immigrants and methamphetamine smuggled from Mexico.

"We've got illegal aliens coming in with meth and the borders have been allowed to collapse," Oliver said at a news conference held at WorkSource, the state's employment referral office.

"As we look at the 4th Congressional District, we see the federal government has been asleep as we have major crime problems in Yakima. It's time to get back under the rule of law," he said.

Oliver, a Benton County commissioner, faces incumbent Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, in the Sept. 19 primary. The winner will meet either Richard Wright of Kennewick or Lew Picton of Manson in the November general election. Wright and Picton are Democrats running in the primary.

Oliver criticized Hastings for voting against a bill last year that called for border enforcement only, without a guest-worker component to help growers secure a legal source of labor. Hastings' position has been that any immigration reform bill must include both border security and a guest-worker program.

But Oliver ruled out deporting all illegal immigrants as impractical.

"Backing trucks up along the border and filling them up with 12 million people isn't going to work," he said.

He favors sending more National Guard units to the border and said the Army's Yakima Training Center could conduct training exercises at the border to help with security.

Jessica Gleason, spokeswoman for Hastings, said the incumbent has a long record of voting for border security.

"He's voted to construct fencing along the border. He's voted for thousands of border patrol agents and funds for border security," Gleason said.

She also noted that Hastings supported the Real ID Act, which in 2008 requires anyone living or working in the United States to have a federally approved identification card.


* Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.

I heard the sadest story this morning. An illegal from Mexico was working for a trucking company and ran over man in a car and killed him. The illegal from Mexico had a CDL license (stolen) but it wasn't in his name. He got 3 months! Only 3 months in jail! A lady that works in the courts told me that she felt so sorry for the victims wife. She said, the only reason he got 3 months was so the wife of the victim would be able to sue the insurance company that held the insurance on the big rig he was driving, otherwise, she would have had no recourse in the death of her husband. It didn't cost the illegal a dime, his legal defense paid for by the American taxpayers. So Sad!!!!!!!!!