Thread: No crime to be illegal alien (opinion, a bad one!)

http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /OPINION02

No crime to be illegal alien


By RON ABRAMSON
For the Monitor


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May 20. 2005 8:00AM


As a New Hampshire resident currently living abroad, I hunger for news from home. I scan the websites of the state's daily newspapers to keep tabs on what's going on. I am proud when good news emanates from New Hampshire, like Bode Miller's and the Monarchs' impressive sports seasons. On the other hand, I cringe when I learn about developments such as New Ipswich Police Chief Garrett Chamberlain's law enforcement crusade.

Thumbing his nose at federal officials, Chamberlain has taken New Hampshire's criminal trespass statute and applied it to undocumented non-citizens present within New Ipswich's limits. The latest prey of the tactic is Jorge Ramirez, a 21-year-old Mexican roofer who pulled off the road in New Ipswich on his way home to Waltham, Mass., on April 15. Inspired by Chamberlain, the Hudson police recently followed suit.

While public reaction to Chamberlain's antics has been predictably positive, his approach is a misguided effort to involve local law enforcement in what is properly federal administrative legal ground. Chamberlain's campaign, boldly proclaimed and proudly publicized, runs contrary to established legal principles and serves as little more than a rhetorical attention-getting device.

The flaw in using local police to treat the undocumented as criminals is that an immigration violation is neither a local legal matter nor a crime.

The rationale for the perceived nobility of Chamberlain's actions is that undocumented non-citizens are inherently criminals. Chamberlain's efforts are part of a developing trend, which Boston College Law Professor Daniel Kanstroom has described as "criminalizing the undocumented."

While it may be against the law, being undocumented is not a crime, and thus immigration violators should not be treated as criminals. Still, despite all the blustery rhetoric that seeks to equate immigration violations with criminal -and often terrorist - activity, the law simply does not support the equation.
Because the distinction between criminal and civil law violations can trouble even an otherwise acute mind, an example may be useful. If a person walks out of a store without paying for an item, she commits the criminal offense of shoplifting. If the same person purchases the item with a credit card and then defaults on the bill, she may have broken the law (the contractual agreement to pay the credit card company), but the breach is not a crime. The rights, procedures and consequences implicated by the civil violation are substantially different.

In addition to the criminal-civil distinction, immigration policy and enforcement are decreed to be the sole province of the federal government, guided by the principle of federalism. For the same reasons that the New Ipswich selectmen cannot declare war on Canada (Chamberlain's next mission?) or sign treaties with the European Union, the town's police chief should not be using state criminal statutes as a transparent pretext for enforcing immigration law.

In 2003, the issue of empowering local law enforcement officials to police immigration violations was the subject of proposed legislation in the U.S. House. The CLEAR Act of 2003 (then House Resolution 2671) sought to provide local agencies with the explicit authority and resources to detain undocumented non-citizens. Such a law was thought necessary precisely because the local police have historically lacked the authority to enforce immigration laws.

Though it apparently comes as a surprise to some members of the local law enforcement community, it merits mentioning that U.S. immigration law establishes specific criteria for determining whether to detain a person suspected of being undocumented.

Having represented non-citizens in New Hampshire in criminal and immigration matters for over a decade, I can attest to the fact that the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement does a frustratingly efficient job of identifying undocumented people and referring them to federal administrative immigration court created exclusively for the purpose of deporting undocumented and criminal non-citizens.

Like every law enforcement entity, though, the bureau prioritizes based upon available resources, detaining virtually all criminal non-citizens. Based upon those same standards, the bureau also imposes alternative conditions for the release of non-criminal non-citizens who pose no danger or risk of flight.

In a newspaper interview published in January, Chamberlain himself griped about the lack of funding for his department. He noted that his department does not "have the manpower to do a lot of prevention," consequently requiring him to establish and follow a set of priorities.

In the case of New Hampshire in general and New Ipswich in particular, employing the local police as immigration enforcers unreasonably magnifies an extremely minor problem. Of New Hampshire's nearly 1.3 million residents, fewer than 2,500 are undocumented, amounting to less than .2 percent.

Nor does the new approach do anything to improve the quality of residents' lives. It does not make the streets safer. It does not remove any actual "criminals"from the community.

Instead, criminalizing the undocumented provides people like Chamberlain with a soapbox from which they can spew anti-immigrant invective and seek to shame the federal government into further diverting its limited resources away from measures that would truly increase national security.

While the distinction between violating a law and being a criminal may be lost on some, the fact is that a person does not check his humanity at the border. It is all too easy to target those who lack a political voice, to scapegoat them for everything from unemployment rates to suburban sprawl to rising medical costs.

Thinking people should ask themselves whether the time and energy devoted to having local police officers file spurious charges against the undocumented takes away from the police's real mission: to catch real criminals and keep their communities safe.

(Concord resident Ron Abramson is a lawyer, law professor and writer living and working in Chile.)

------ End of article

By RON ABRAMSON

For the Monitor

Mr. Abramson.....that was quite a little "legal" spiel from your current abode there in Chilay!!

We appreciate all the time you spent developing your pro-immigration, pro-illegal alien SPIN!!!

We've heard it all before....it's UTTER NONSENSE!!

First of all, you are a lawyer empowered with the right to spin two sides of the truth when there is only ONE.

Second of all, you don't make the law, you don't enforce the law, and you don't interpret the law.

Third, the Police Chief does have the right to press trespassing charges against anyone he wants to. It's up to a magistrate to decide, not you, whether the charges are correct or not.

Fourth, because Mr. Ramirez probably had a Massachusetts license plate and was probably on a New Hampshire City or State Highway, OUT of the FEDERALIS JURISDICTION, the Ipswich City Police had EVERY right to determine if this individual was in the state or their city of New Hampshire legally.

Fifth, your "example" of a criminal and civil difference is completely WRONG. Illegal entry into the United States is not a civil offense, but a criminal violation. The consequence is DEPORTATION and quite different if not TOTALLY DIFFERENT from either the scenario of shoplighting or failing to make credit card payments on time.

Sixth, American Immigration Law doesn't distinguish between an alien who has committed violent crimes and those who haven't. The mere presence in the United States is the crime subject to deportation. Aliens who commit violent crimes are then subject to other laws pertaining to the crime or string of crimes committed. Aliens have no constitutional rights in the United States because they are under the legal jurisdiction of another nation and that constitution which is why they are to be deported immediately. Our constitution governs American Citizens under the jurisdiction of the United States of America. Now, when an alien commits a crime under criminal law in the United States of America against American Property or American Citizens or American Civil Laws, they engage themselves in our process and are subject to all the penalities of law and for the sake of fairness are allowed defense protections like an American.

Seventh, WAS Mr. Ramirez in the US Legally or NOT? You failed to mention that fact in your "story". As WE all know, not all "roofers" from Massachusetts are in the US Legally....as I'm sure YOU know from your new abode in Chilay!! Routine traffic stops are well within the perview of a local municipality. Municipalities have rights equal to airports, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Abramson? If a security guard at a checkpoint in an airport can frisk me and touch my breasts in the name of national security, then a Hudson City Police Officer should have the right to stop vehicles and check documents on out-of-staters that resemble aliens.

If we did not have an illegal alien problem, then this would not be necessary. Those who have created the illegal alien problem, have created the problem Mr. Ramirez experienced in Hudson, not the Police Chief of the City Police Officers.

So, Shudder, Cringe, Weep, Worry all you want.....This is only the Beginning of Americans ENFORCING AMERICAN LAWS.

If you want to do something for your state of New Hampshire, why don't you move back from Chilay and run for Police Chief!! You'd probably get as many votes as you deserve from this little "spiel".

You've disgraced yourself, Mr. Abramson, but.....this is a free country and you have every right to do it!!

GO CHIEF!!