Thread: Deaths and urgency on immigration

Deaths and urgency on immigration
Apr 11, 2007

The emotions stirred nationwide by a double fatality in Virginia should open eyes in Washington to the need for reform.

Two teenage girls died in a senseless traffic accident in Virginia Beach last week. An illegal immigrant who police said had been drinking ran a red light and killed them.

He had been convicted of three prior alcohol-related offenses, yet had not been deported.

The resulting rage -- not just against a repeat offender who happens also to be an illegal immigrant, but against illegal immigrants in general -- adds to the political urgency to fix the nation's broken immigration laws and enforcement procedures.

Both are federal issues. Yet as Washington's failure to act stretches from years to decades, states and communities are having to wrestle with the impact of booming immigrant populations that include many undocumented workers.

Last week's tragic loss of life has put Virginia -- and Virginia Beach, in particular -- at the center of an emotional debate about what, if anything, states and localities should do to discourage undocumented workers from coming and staying.

The truth is, no one knows. Not yet, anyway. Not in Virginia.

TV's inflammatory Bill O'Reilly has vilified Virginia Beach's mayor and police chief for a city policy that bars police from asking the immigration status of people charged with misdemeanors, such as driving under the influence.

Yet the Virginia Beach policy is supported by the fact that, legal or not, immigrants must be able to approach local law officers without fear, or crime will go unreported and public safety will erode.

What is a reasonable response for the state and its localities?

Virginia has set up two task forces on the matter: a Commission on Immigration to look at the costs and benefits of immigration, legal and illegal, including the impact on the state's economy, health care, education and law enforcement; and a State Crime Commission panel to look specifically at the impact on the criminal justice system.

A slew of immigration bills come before the legislature each year, and fail. They are mainly impractical and unenforceable and possibly counterproductive were they to go into effect.

Perhaps next year, the work of the task forces will give the assembly a solid basis upon which to act.

Whatever problems illegal immigration has created cannot be fully addressed, though, except at the federal level.

President Bush was out West this week, trying to build political steam for his efforts to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. A Democratic Congress should be a natural ally, yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has balked. House Democrats want bipartisan cover -- at least 70 Republican votes -- before she'll even think about a vote on comprehensive immigration reform.

This is politics as usual -- which is to say, reprehensible.

That last week's fatalities in Virginia Beach struck a national nerve should be evidence in Washington that the public has had it with the immigration status quo. Congress needs to act now.

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/wb/xp-112579

There is so much wrong with this biased and ignorant article.

Let's start here.......

adds to the political urgency to fix the nation's broken immigration laws and enforcement procedures.

What's broken?
What LAWS have been enforced on a consistant basis in the past 20 years?

This is plain heiferdust and has been used like the rhetoric from a porta potty.

It's a LIE and used to intimidate the American people.

DEMAND, with every meeting, call and email to our Congress, that we want our LAWS ENFORCED for the first time in our recent history!!!
We don't have a 'broken' system, we have a system that has never been worked!

The only problem is enforcing the immigration law by deporting these illegals who commit crimes.