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Incidents whow why it's tough to halt illegal immigrants
Thursday, 10 August 2006
While Hazleton presses on with its efforts to control illegal immigration in the city limits, two incidents this past week illustrate just how difficult the problem will be to control.

On Sunday, state police checking on a car that broke down on Interstate 80 in Butler Township found that the four occupants were illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Troopers did the right thing. They contacted federal immigration authorities for guidance. The feds’ response? Let them go.
So the illegals were allowed to continue their trip to Chicago.

A day later, thousands of miles away in Arizona, Border Patrol agents took off after an SUV that had tried to circumvent a checkpoint on a highway near Yuma. The Chevy Suburban tried to make a U-turn, but it rolled over, spilling passengers onto the road. Nine illegal immigrants were killed.

Astonishingly, the vehicle had been carrying 21 people, apparently all of them illegal immigrants from throughout Mexico. They had been stacked inside the SUV, one on top of another.

The Butler Township incident shows how difficult it is to enforce immigration laws. Too often, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) simply looks the other way when local police detain illegals. The reason may be that there are simply too many illegal immigrants for federal officials to cope with.

The Arizona tragedy illustrates the lengths to which immigrants will go to get into the United States. When people are willing to risk their lives, many of them more than once, to sneak into America, it’s difficult to stop them.

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, backed up by his city council, is doing what he can to stem the tide of illegals locally.

It may be difficult to measure the impact of the city’s Illegal Immigration Relief Ordinance, but stories around town suggest that a number of apparently illegal immigrants have already packed their bags. “For rent” signs have been showing up on buildings throughout the city and it’s probably safe to assume that most of the people who left weren’t properly documented.

Until the U.S. Congress takes effective action on immigration, it will be left to towns like Hazleton to do what they can to police their own borders.