Thread: AL On illegal immigration, Battle does little

On illegal immigration, Battle does little
Sunday, May 24, 2009
By Dale Jackson
For The Times

Stop me if you have heard this before: "The federal government has dropped the ball on illegal immigration."

I have had just about enough of our weak-kneed political leaders on the state and local level using that excuse to justify doing nothing about an issue that affects all of us.

Do you have kids in school? Your resources are being devoured by anchor babies and illegal alien students.

Do you ever get sick (made-up swine flu pandemics aside)? You are paying for the medical treatment of people who have no insurance and treat emergency rooms as their personal doctor's office.

Do you pay taxes? Of course most of you reading this paper do. Your tax dollars are going to jail people who are in the country illegally, but I have no problem with that. The fact that an illegal ever gets out of jail without being dropped in Mexico is an embarrassment to our justice system, but what do we expect when the head of the Department of Homeland Security tells us that illegal entry into the United States alone is not a crime? In fact it's the first crime.

Unfortunately for most Americans, with the federal government in Democratic control, there is no desire to do anything about illegal immigration. Don't get me wrong; Republicans had their shot at fixing our borders and reforming our broken system of entry into our nation.

So what do we do?

Do we look to our state government? We have good folks there, we have bills that have been filed that had more than half the state senate's members as sponsors. But they still couldn't bring themselves to get a bill on the floor for an up or down vote. Sorry, but the Alabama Legislature makes the U.S. Congress look like a model of efficiency.

With the feds disinterested and the state legislature an incompetent mess, who can we turn to?

Well, ask Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and the City Council, and they will tell you "not us." Then, attempts are made to pass the buck and rattle off something about closed borders or how to get Congressman Parker Griffith (yes, the same Griffith who killed immigration reform in the Alabama Senate) to provide funding to train the Huntsville Police Department to be certified by ICE.

We've heard this before; it's a joke.

The fact that Battle would call the HPD before the council to talk to them about illegals is laughable. The police do not make laws and ordinances - the Legislature and City Council do. Battle told me on my radio show the next day that he and the Huntsville City Council plan on doing nothing about this issue.

I thought Battle was going to change how the city of Huntsville does business? All I am seeing is more of the same.

Mayor Spencer and a complacent City Council did nothing to affect the attractiveness of Huntsville to illegals.

Now true, no one, including me, is foolish enough to think that Battle can singlehandedly solve the immigration crisis in America. That is not his job. But the mayor's job is to pull together the council, citizens and state and federal leaders and admit that they have a problem. They then need to work on this issue and craft legal ordinances that focus on the issues that attract illegals to our area. Throwing up your hands and saying "we can't do anything" is unacceptable.

Solutions are available

Since I am a man of solutions so let me offer a few suggestions:

Battle and the City Council control business licenses. It is a privilege to have one, not a right. If the city wanted to, it could mandate the city's licensees using the E-verify program. It's not perfect, but as our president says, "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

This will not be an easy row to hoe, but we should refuse to accept a mayor and city council that say "it's not our job."

By the way: Mayor Finley (Madison), Mayor Williams (Athens), Mayor Stanford (Decatur) and all the other mayors in the Tennessee Valley, don't think that because you weren't mentioned no one is concerned about your inaction.

Dale Jackson is host of "The Dale Jackson Show' weekdays on radio station WVNN.


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Outstanding! Thank you for posting.