Stopa: All illegal aliens must go

By Mike Stopa/Guest columnist
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Jun 12, 2011 @ 12:18 AM

So now, we wait.

A year and a half has passed since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program for coordinating federal and local law enforcement efforts, "Secure Communities," landed on Gov. Deval Patrick's desk for his signature. Six months now gone, since Patrick agreed to sign Massachusetts on to the program that demonstrably removes level 1 criminal illegal aliens from the streets of Boston and America. Three weeks have elapsed since the final "hearing" by the governor's kangaroo panel was conducted in Brockton - a town where Maria Palaguachi-Cela's body and that of her 2-year-old son were left in a dumpster, allegedly murdered by multi-time violent offender and illegal alien Luis Guaman.

After all that waiting Gov. Patrick on Monday sacrificed the safety of his citizens to the sanctity of his illegal alien protection racket constituents, he sacrificed the rule of law to political correctness. Patrick refused to sign on to Secure Communities and has officially made Massachusetts into a sanctuary state.

So now, again, we wait.

We wait for the first rape or the first vehicular manslaughter or the first murder to occur at the hands of an illegal alien who would have been sent home by Secure Communities.

And when the parents or spouse or children of that first victim appear on the local news and ask Gov. Patrick why he thought that the fear of illegal aliens for the police required more consideration than the fear of legal citizens for violent criminals, will the governor honor them with an answer? Will the governor visit the victim in the hospital? Will he attend their funeral?

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the Secure Communities program, a system of exchanging fingerprints between local law enforcement agencies and ICE, must be initiated in all states by 2013. To date, 42 states have begun the program. Until Patrick's announcement, only Illinois and New York had indicated an intention to withdraw. Together with those states, Massachusetts has just laid out a comely Bay State welcome mat, complete with neon sign, for illegal aliens and their criminal brothers and sisters.

Perhaps most frightening of all, in his remarks on refusing to participate in Secure Communities, Patrick suggested that the Obama administration might somehow back off the program altogether.

Nevertheless, the tide of events has turned in favor of those seeking to send illegal aliens back to their home countries. Two concerted efforts, by two presidents, to pass an amnesty bill have been resoundingly defeated. An attempt to ram through the so-called "DREAM act" or "camel's nose under the tent amnesty," was thwarted in December. And the Supreme Court has upheld one Arizona law (mandating that all employers use E-Verify), suggesting that they might uphold others. Still, the battle will really only be won when every employer who employs illegal aliens takes up pencil and paper and sits down with their spouse at the kitchen table and says: "honey, we have to figure out how to make our business work when we can't hire illegal aliens anymore."

Because that day is coming.

Meanwhile, one can imagine that Gov. Patrick is calculating for his political future. Perhaps he sees the prospect of 12 million overwhelmingly Democrat new voters as a carpet to some higher office; maybe even the presidency. But in that case Patrick does well to take a note of caution from the experience of a previous Massachusetts governor who reached for the Oval Office only to falter on the doorstep when the name "Willie Horton" was mentioned.

Michael Stopa lives in Holliston.
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