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GOP missed the boat on illegals
Posted by Paul Mulshine August 28, 2007 10:02AM
Categories: Policy Watch, Race & Immigration
All across the nation, the lesson of that tragic triple homicide in Newark has sunk in: Illegal aliens who are charged with committing one crime should be deported before they get a chance to commit a second crime.

Even the New Jersey Democrats finally got the message. Last week Attorney General Anne Milgram issued a directive that would require the cops to turn over to the feds any illegal aliens who commit crimes or drive drunk.

That leaves just one group that still hasn't gotten a clue: New Jersey Republicans.

I get press releases every day from these guys on all sorts of trivial issues. Yet when a New Jersey story involving illegal aliens makes national news, we don't hear a peep out of them.

This is hardly surprising. New Jersey Republicans are merely following the dictates of national Republicans. In 2005, the state GOP even went so far as to demand that the state start issuing a special driver's license for illegal aliens. This was a thoroughly nutty idea. Even nuttier was the fact that it was endorsed by President Bush and his brother Jeb, who was then governor of Florida.


In calling for licenses for illegals, the state GOP was recommending the reversal of perhaps the sole conservative accomplishment of Jim McGreevey. The former governor might have been a knee-jerk liberal in every other respect, but he did make it nearly impossible for illegal aliens to get Jersey licenses.

It's pretty embarrassing when a Jersey Republican ends up to the left of a Democrat on such an issue. Yet we are witnessing the phenomenon again in the current dust-up between Chris Christie and Don Cresitello.

Christie is the U.S. attorney and a Republican. Cresitello is the mayor of Morristown and a Democrat. Cresitello has been in the news recently because of his calls for his police force to gain the power to enforce immigration laws. At a rally at Morristown City Hall not long before those Newark murders, Cresitello commented on prior cases in which illegal aliens who had been arrested for minor crimes later ended up committing major crimes.

In a newspaper interview after that rally, Christie accused Cresitello of "grandstanding" on the issue. However, it soon developed that the alleged ringleader of the Newark murders, Jose Lachira Carranza, fit the exact profile highlighted by the mayor. Before long even the state attorney general had come around to Cresitello's point of view.

But she didn't come all the way around. Cresitello cites another major problem. His police commonly stop drivers who have no licenses or out-of-state licenses of dubious validity.

"You can only give them a summons for driving without a license and then hope they show up in court," he said.

And then there are the arrests for disorderly conduct and domestic abuse, misdemeanors not covered by the Milgram order. Cresitello would also like to have his police enforce the federal laws that are being broken every time contractors pick up illegal day laborers downtown. On Aug. 16, the mayor sent a letter to Christie requesting his help in gaining federal 287(g) status, which would empower police to enforce these laws. Christie responded with a letter informing Cresitello that his desired enforcement measures "appear to directly contradict the orders issued by the state's chief law enforcement officer."

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is to argue that federal law trumps state law. The Corzine administration seems to have forgotten that. The governor recently appointed a commission to help integrate illegal aliens into New Jersey. It seems curious that a Republican would side with an administration with such a casual approach to immigration law.

When I got him on the phone yesterday, Christie conceded that Cresitello has a point about the need to collar illegals who drive without licenses. But the problem would be better addressed on the federal level.

"I think we're looking at it on the wrong side of things," said Christie. "I think we should be tougher on how licenses are issued. The more effective way of dealing with that is to have some sort of verifiable ID card."

But that will accomplish nothing if Milgram can prevent the cops from arresting illegals who lack that card. That was the whole point of the 1996 law creating the 287(g) program. The feds can't be everywhere, so local police would be deputized to enforce immigration laws. With 10 million people in the country illegally, how else will we ever end illegal immigration?

"I can't even begin to think of how it would be done," Christie replied.

I can. Enforce the law. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to start doing that. It might as well be a Republican.

http://blog.nj.com