Thread: It's not like Irving asked for immigration mess

It's not like Irving asked for immigration mess

06:38 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Cities whose leaders think they've got this whole illegal-immigrant business under control might want to take a long, hard look at Irving – which, not so long ago, thought it had things under control, too.

But Irving learned the hard way it doesn't take much to pull the pin on this political grenade.

Over the last couple of months, Irving has made the dismaying discovery that, as long as local governments are stuck making do-it-yourself immigration policy, there are no right answers.

There's no compromise, no tightrope-walking the line between irreconcilable factions, no throwing wide the window to the fresh breeze of reason. At a more distant remove, it might still be a policy debate. In Irving, it's civil war.

At least, that's what we're left to conclude when we read about Irving Hispanics comparing themselves to the Jews of 1930s Berlin, or witness the disturbing spectacle of an overwrought sexagenarian shooting the bird at TV cameras as the cops drag her off for attacking protesters at a pro-immigrant rally. This isn't debate – it's hysteria.

It wasn't that long ago that Irving's most prominent problem was figuring out what to do with Texas Stadium once the Dallas Cowboys move out, and Mayor Herbert Gears was insisting firmly that the city had no intention of following Farmers Branch in passing divisive ordinances barring landlords from renting to tenants without proof of legal residency.

Mr. Gears may not have wanted this particular brawl in Irving, but it came anyway, on the heels of what was perhaps the city's well-intended effort to forge a compromise.

That was a unanimous council vote to sign the city on to an existing program that allows the police to contact federal immigration authorities should they arrest someone whose legal status is in doubt.

Signing up to tip the feds to suspects who have actually been arrested for crimes does not, on its face, strike me as unreasonable. We're not talking about raiding people's homes or rounding them up after church.

But angry protests have broken out from two sides. Some say the police have been overzealous in arresting Hispanics for minor crimes, which has resulted in Irving achieving a record-setting deportation rate.

Dark rumors abound that it's unsafe for people of Hispanic appearance to drive across town or grab a latte at the mall; the school district says parents are keeping their kids home from school, lest they be snatched from their desks by deportation storm troopers.

From the opposite pole comes the swelling chorus of those who want more, much more, in the way of enforcement: They want the city to adopt a program that would turn local cops into immigration police, never mind calling in the feds to handle the job.

They want the public library to quit stocking books printed in Spanish. They want the city's official Web site reserved for readers of English only. They're outspoken, as was this recent Irving resident who wrote to The Dallas Morning News, about "the glut of illegal immigrants who are now occupying our city[.]"

I defy even the sunniest of optimists to find much room for compromise between these two camps. Government inaction at the federal level has pushed this fight down to towns and schools and neighborhoods, where it's ugly and personal.

Instead of a compromise, Irving has a fresh source of tension between those who think the city has resorted to racist profiling in its zeal for deportations and those infuriated over what they see as a growing indifference to the interests of lifelong residents.

Irving, like Farmers Branch, was ripe for this collision, with a large population of older, middle-income residents, an aging housing stock that attracted an influx of lower-income minorities and easy proximity to jobs that draw illegal workers. The issue may have been forced in Farmers Branch by opportunistic political leaders, but the results are similar: fear, fury, neighbor-vs.-neighbor mistrust.

Until there's some kind of sane and practical immigration reform out of Washington – and I'm turning blue from holding my breath – we'll have more of the same.

We'll have more ugly conflict at the local level, where the destruction is the worst. We'll have more civil wars.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 1860c.html

Ah, this is not a civil war.

A war between factions of the same country; there are five criteria for international recognition of this status:
The contestants must control territory,
Have a functioning government,
Enjoy some foreign recognition,
Have identifiable regular armed forces,
Engage in major military operations.

Illegal aliens have none of the above! Nor do their supporters.

Mr. Gears may not have wanted this particular brawl in Irving, but it came anyway, on the heels of what was perhaps the city's well-intended effort to forge a compromise.

What came Irving's way are the Hispanic leaders from out of town. Same thing happened in Farmers Branch. The pro-immigrant crazies from Dallas came riding in trying to scare up some popularity, funding and aspirations of political offices. It's not about the illegal aliens, it's about me, me, me...

Dixie