March to amnesty for illegal aliens

Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
May 24, 2009 Sunday

A many-pronged assault is under way in Washington against the idea that the United States has the right to control its borders and enforce its immigration laws.

* The president is moving away from raids against illegal employees and zeroing in on companies that hire them. Punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens is certainly worth pursuing, but it is no reason to let up on arresting and deporting those who broke our laws to come here.

* The administration is seeking to zero out funding to add to a 670-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. As a senator, Mr. Obama joined with the overwhelming majority of his fellow senators to support building barriers along the border. The U.S. Border Patrol says the barriers help agents catch illegal aliens before they can make it to nearby communities and blend in, The Houston Chronicle reported.

* The president wants Congress to stop making federal payments to states and cities that have to use their own resources to jail illegal aliens who have committed at least one felony and two misdemeanors. Constitutionally, the federal government has the duty to enforce immigration law, but its lax approach has dropped much of that job in the laps of states and cities and saddled them with an unjust financial burden.

* The Obama administration's nominee to head the 2010 census, Robert Groves, is hinting that he would support a halt to raids against illegal aliens while the census is under way. The idea is that census takers can get a better count of who is in the United States if illegal aliens are not afraid of deportation. A thorough count is desirable, but we cannot put law enforcement on hold for a year.

None of this is surprising. Mr. Obama wants to create a "pathway to citizenship" for the estimated 11 million to 20 million illegal aliens already in the United States, he recently reminded reporters. We should not be shocked that he is keeping that campaign promise.

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