Our Borders Matter
Posted 2008-04-11

Once again, a politician in California has demonstrated why what used to be called The Bear Flag Republic is now known as "The Left Coast." It seems the mayor of Los Angeles doesn't think the United States should enforce its immigration laws.

On March 27, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa penned a missive to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Homeland Security Department, to complain about the agency's work in the City of Angels. "I am concerned," the mayor huffed, "that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] enforcement actions are creating an impression that this region is somehow less hospitable to these critical businesses than other regions." As well, he continued, ICE is aiming at "established, responsible employers" with "significant reliance on workforces that include undocumented immigrants."

One wonders how "responsible" an employer can be if it relies on illegal immigrants, but in any event ICE does not agree. And it shouldn't.

Far from being too tough on illegal immigration, the federal government has been rather a soft touch on the matter. Indeed, had the government stopped illegal immigration 20 years ago, those businesses would not need to rely on illegal immigrants. And here in Harrisonburg a few years ago, a spokesman for the federal immigration agency flatly declared that the agency wasn't interested in deporting all illegal immigrants, but only those who committed crimes.

Beyond that, the federal government has permitted municipal officials to declare their cities "sanctuaries" and to forbid police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. One of them was failed GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who fought to the U.S. Supreme Court on that front and defied the federal government right up to a week before Sept. 11, 2001, the day a gang of illegal aliens slaughtered nearly 3,000 Americans.

Los Angeles itself has become a sanctuary, if not officially then as a practical matter, and some Americans will remember the thousands of illegal immigrants who flooded American streets two years ago to protest immigration law reform. That little fiesta demonstrated the impotence of federal immigration law and those who enforce it.

Mayor Villaraigosa's leftist views are hardly new, but they invite the question of whether the mayor and his ilk remotely understand what it means to be an American, and whether they care at all about something called sovereignty. Or perhaps he believes, with one of Hillary Clinton's supporters, that the reconquista is accomplished. Said radical immigration activist Dolores Huerta, the co-chair of Clinton's campaign "outreach" to Hispanics, "It's really too late. If 47 million [Latinos] have one baby each ... it's already won."

Or maybe the mayor does understand what it means to be an American, and has decided his loyalty lies elsewhere.
http://www.dailynews-record.com/opinion ... 43&CHID=36