Thread: NJ-Ahearn: Split at top on illegal immigrants

Ahearn: Split at top on illegal immigrants
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Last updated: Sunday April 12, 2009, 10:12 AM
By JAMES AHEARN

THREE NEW Jersey events involving illegal immigration occurred in the summer of 2007.


MILGRAM First, on a warm August night in a Newark schoolyard, four black college students were lined up against a wall and shot. Three died on the spot.

One survived and was able to identify attackers from mug shots. One was an illegal immigrant from Peru who a few weeks earlier had been released from jail on reduced bail, pending trial for child rape and assault.

Two days after the killings, Governor Corzine announced formation of an advisory panel on immigration, one of his trademark blue-ribbon commissions. This one initially consisted of 27 members, later expanded to 35.

They included leaders of the legislative black and Hispanic caucuses and representatives of various minority groups, but of the three dozen members, none advocated stricter enforcement of immigration laws. The state Public Advocate, Ronald K. Chen, was appointed to lead the panel.

Corzine, presiding at an upbeat signing ceremony, said he was looking for a strategy "to weave immigrants into the economic, social, and civic fabric of our communities and state."

Two weeks ago his Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Immigrant Policy submitted its report, a 120-page door-stopper with an executive summary that itself ran 31 pages.

Among scores of recommendations, several stood out: First, the state should authorize driver's licenses or driver's privilege cards for illegal immigrants.

Second, illegal immigrant students admitted to the state's public colleges should be eligible for the low tuition the colleges charge other New Jersey residents, not the much higher fee charged for out-of-state residents.

Third, the governor should intercede with the president and the Department of Homeland Security to impose a moratorium on home and workplace raids by federal immigration police.

The moratorium would last until the federal government enacted comprehensive immigration reforms. President Obama was reported last week to be planning action on the issue later this year.




Impossible



It will be as difficult a task as any he has set for himself. Any suggestion that illegal immigrants be helped to stay and thrive in America has met vociferous opposition.

A recent Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll found only 20 percent supporting in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Thirty-seven percent said such students should pay out-of-state rates, and 39 percent said they should not even be admitted to public colleges.

Sixty-two percent opposed driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. That reaction echoes the commotion that Eliot Spitzer set off in 2007 when, as governor of New York, he proposed to issue such licenses.

He refused to back off, saying it was the right thing to do. The idea died when Spitzer resigned the governorship in disgrace, unmasked as a patron of a high-priced prostitution ring.

Corzine issued a terse statement about the Blue Ribbon report, saying the recommendations were a mixed bag. Some were good, some impractical, he said.

He favored the in-state tuition proposal, reasoning that it would continue tax-paid support of students who had already received public elementary, middle and highschool instruction.




As for driver's licenses for immigrants, though, he took a pass. He didn't oppose the idea. Rather, he said that it could not be adopted effectively state by state, that it would require federal action.

The third event in August 2007 was the issuance of a directive by Attorney General Anne Milgram to all law enforcement agencies in the state. Promulgated 18 days after the Newark schoolyard killings, the directive provided guidelines for interaction with federal immigration authorities.

She presented the guidelines at a news conference also attended by Christopher Christie, then the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, now a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor. Notably absent was Corzine, who usually commandeers the stage when there is anything of consequence for his administration to announce. Not this time.




Partnership



The guidelines said that when an officer arrests someone for an indictable crime or for drunken driving, the officer should ask the person about his citizenship, nationality and immigration status. If the officer has reason to believe the person is not a legal resident, immigration authorities should be notified.

Note that officers are not permitted to refer persons pulled over in traffic stops, or involved in disorderly person offenses, or domestic disputes. Since the directive was promulgated, the number of referrals to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement has doubled. In a six-month period there were 10,000, resulting in immigration charges against 1,417 persons.

The governor's Blue Ribbon Panel complained that officers were referring people without adequate "reason to believe" they were illegal immigrants. The standard is too vague, the panel complained. Perhaps it could be clarified.

Basically, however, the governor and his advisory panel want to integrate immigrants, legal and illegal, into the fabric of the state, while the governor's appointee as attorney general focuses on enforcement of existing laws that treat undocumented immigrants as illegal aliens.



http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/more ... c=y&page=2

The Attorney General is right and they should be treated, processed and deported as illegal aliens because they ARE illegal aliens. Another doofus Governor in New Jersey pandering for slime votes. It's nauseating.

Where is Brian's Barf Bucket??!!