Perry's election-year emergency on immigration

Perry's election-year emergency on immigration
Posted Saturday, Oct. 09, 2010 2 Comments
By Bud Kennedy


Right on schedule, Gov. Perry lashed out last week at sanctuary cities.

He always talks about immigration before elections. Just not afterward.

Perry has been governor of Texas since last century. As Democratic opponent Bill White has said, Perry has had years to do something about immigration.

Now, a month before the election, he has suddenly decided that allowing law enforcement officers to ask people about their immigration status is an emergency and must be fixed the minute the Legislature meets in January.

Why wasn't it an emergency in 2007 or 2009?

Perry criticized so-called sanctuary-city policies back then, too. But he wasn't running against a former mayor of Houston.

Some definitions: Sanctuary city is a 1980s term for cities that refuse to help immigration enforcement. We're talking Cambridge, Mass., or Berkeley, Calif.

As far as I know, Texas has never had a formal sanctuary city.

But several police agencies -- including state troopers and police in Fort Worth, Arlington and White's hometown of Houston -- have or had a "don't ask, don't tell" rule.

Their policy is that officers don't investigate immigration status. (That's a federal civil matter.)

Lately, Tarrant County and all of Texas have joined Secure Communities, a high-tech crackdown that rounds up deportable criminal immigrants and drug offenders.

So, all cities' officers now help enforce immigration law. Yet Perry still wants troopers and police freed to ask about immigration status.

He said some cities' rules are "handcuffing our officers."

He means Houston.

White has replied that Houston police are freer than state troopers.

Perry and White have said they oppose bringing Arizona's immigration law to Texas, giving basically the same reason: Forcing police to do immigration enforcement is not the "highest and best use" of officers, as Perry repeated Friday in Fort Worth.

In other words, Perry wants to let officers ask about immigration status, but not make them do it.

He said he wants to change the law and "send a clear message." That does not sound like an emergency.

www.star-telegram.com

Jean....I think that El Paso IS a Sanctuary City. No one claims that it is but all one has to do is take a look around at the people living here and it's obvious that El Paso looks the other way when it comes to illegal immigrants.

Texas is full of sanctuary cities. Bill White was the leader of the nation's biggest.....Houston, Texas. Bill White still claims he supports this nation's immigration laws. Since we have a choice of two liars, I'll cast my vote for Perry. I already know what kind of damage Bill White can do to this great state.